The Itchies, Part II

Leo’s first summer in Portland was a disaster. After lots of scratching and licking resulted in a visit to the vet, I found out that he had numerous infections. The vet prescribed antibiotics for the infections and steroids for the itching, and so began Leo’s new health regimen.

I squirted cleaner in his ears (though admittedly, most of it just trickled down the side of his furry face, making a mess of his fur, because I was too squeamish to really get down inside his ears). I switched him to a pricey raw meat diet, hoping that real food with no fillers might do the trick. And I dutifully took him to the vet to have his anal sacs regularly expressed. Anal sacs express themselves? This was new to me (and technically, they don’t express themselves—they require someone else to express them).

Eventually the ear infection went away, and so did the staph and anal sac infections. But the overall itching and hot spots proved more stubborn. Several different vets gave me their opinions yet all remained stumped. I spent a fortune on Leo that summer, and still he had little relief from the itching and irritation.

Finally we were referred to a veterinary allergy and dermatology specialist. She remarked that Leo looked very dignified with his gray eyebrows, and took him into a separate exam room. A few moments later they returned.

Her diagnosis? He was most likely allergic to northwest pollens, just like the rest of the population that had moved here from another part of the country (namely, me). “Duh,” I thought. For another $1,000, she could do allergy testing to determine the exact cause of his allergies. I would then be required to give him injections that would, over the course of a year, desensitize him to the allergen(s). And cost lots more money.

I told her I had to think it over, and ushered Leo out the door and into the car where I promptly burst into tears. How could I possibly afford this allergy treatment stuff? And how could I possibly give him regular injections when I had a hard enough time cleaning his ears? Clearly I was a rotten dog owner. Words like “unfit,” “negligent” and “cheap” bounced around in my head as I drove home.

Eventually summer faded into fall and miraculously, Leo’s allergic reactions faded away, too. The itching stopped and his coat became bright and shiny once more—until the following summer, when he exploded with hot spots again. By now I had found a new vet, and this one not only gave him steroids for the itching but also put him in the cone.

Ah, the dreaded cone. Once again, people on the street would point and laugh. At home, we made the requisite jokes (“Son, you’ve got a lampshade on your head.”) Leo wasn’t happy about this new contraption; the cone made it difficult for him to perform everyday tasks. When he tried to hop up onto his couch, the cone would deflect off the couch, sending him back to the floor. Rounding corners took repeated efforts and even smelling flowers was a challenge.
Taking care of Leo in the cone was no treat, either. It was like taking care of a special needs person: after every meal, the inside of his cone was filled with raw meat splatter that I would carefully wipe clean.

Despite my lifelong love of summer and sunshine, I found myself pining for rainy days that would wash away the evil pollens. There had to be a better way!

The Itchies, Part I

I adopted Leo in January 2006. That year, summer arrived early in Portland. It was hot in May—really hot. And with his thick shag of black fur, Leo wasn’t digging it. To make matters worse, I lived in a tiny apartment with only three windows and a ceiling fan to stir the dead air around. On a hot day, we were both miserable in our (oven) den.

So I thought I was doing Leo a favor when I had him shaved. What I didn’t realize was the emotional impact that shaving would have on him. He came home from the groomers looking—how shall I put it?—diminished. Underneath all that gloriously thick fur was the scrawny, wrinkly body of an old man—a scrawny, wrinkly body with a bushy tail and a furry bobble head attached. He looked ridiculous.

I wasn’t the only one who thought so. People on the street would point and laugh when I took him for a walk. He looked ridiculous, and he knew it. Accuse me of anthropomorphizing him, but robbed as he was of his thick, showy fur, he was depressed. I could see it in his eyes and in his body language. In an attempt to cheer him up, I bought him a very macho studded collar. It did little to console him.

And then a cold spell descended on Portland and we were plunged back into rainy winter days. I worried that he would catch cold and scoured the city to find a raincoat. I bought two and returned two; they wouldn’t fit over his giant head. On the chilliest of nights, I swaddled him in an old flannel shirt.

“You look great in flannel!” I told him. “The grunge look really suits you.”
The look in his eyes said, “Bite me.”

As May rolled into June, his fur began to grow back and his spirits lifted. But by July, he was itching like mad. At first I thought it was just the fur growing in, irritating his skin. But the itching persisted. I wondered if he had contracted some strange skin condition from the filthy flood waters in New Orleans that was only now manifesting itself.

Then the licking and chewing began in earnest, mostly in his groin area. I worried that he had the canine equivalent of jock itch. It was disgusting to hear him licking and snorkeling (like a pug, a breed of dog I’m not fond of) until he was literally out of breath and had to come up for air, panting like mad.

My husband (then just a mere boyfriend) said I worried about Leo too much. He said Leo was just doing what dogs do—itch and lick and snorkel.

I ignored him and promptly took Leo to the vet and got a not-so-definitive diagnosis: Leo was allergic to….something. Something in his food? An environmental irritant? My friend Heather was allergic to grass of all things. Was Leo allergic to grass? Whatever it was, it had resulted in an ear infection, an anal sac infection, hot spots (areas where he had chewed away the fur to reveal a bald and bloody spot on his skin) and a staph infection. My poor Leo was a mess!

Little House in Willamette Valley

Rather than barbeques and fireworks, our July 4th weekend was spent tearing the roof off the house in preparation for a new one. Most people would hire someone to do this sort of thing for them. But to my husband, this is a perfectly reasonable task to take on yourself (with the help of some friends, of course).

You see, my husband grew up the son of a carpenter and was a carpenter for many years—it’s one of the things I love about him. In his late 20s, he went back to school and earned his Masters degree in education—another thing that I love about him. (A guy who can fix things and build stuff AND talk educational philosophy and children’s books? This was the man for me.)

My appreciation of the sensitive manly man—the man who can do guy stuff and still carry on an intelligent, insightful conversation—was inspired early in life. I credit the “Little House on the Prairie” books for planting the seed that blossomed into the notion that men should be well-versed in tasks requiring brute strength and stamina, yet still refined.

It was the book version of Pa—not the curly haired boy-man of the TV show, Michael Landon—who served as the benchmark by which all other men would be judged in my life. Pa Ingalls was a guy who could fell massive trees, build a log cabin, tame wild horses, hunt down dinner, and then come home to bounce you on his knee, beguile you with stories, and play a jig on the fiddle—all while a plague of locusts swept across the prairie, engulfing your house.

So when my husband came down from the roof after spending 12 hours in the blazing sun—sunburned and grimy with soot and sweat, yet still his usual easy-going, cheerful self, quick with a goofy laugh—I felt a strange mixture of concern (it’s hot and dangerous up there, and he was obviously exhausted), pride (show me a harder working man than my man!) and, oddly enough, arousal (sure he was filthy and stank like road kill, but it was nothing a shower couldn’t fix.)

Day One of roof removal transformed me into a pioneer woman. It was my responsibility to keep the men fed and watered. I served breakfast, lunch and dinner; made sure there was plenty of ice water with slices of lemon available; and even tried to lob a bottle of Gatorade up on the roof (unfortunately, I throw like a girl and the bottle went crashing through our back kitchen window, spraying broken glass everywhere, much to Leo’s disgust and my embarrassment).
Day Two I hit the yard as the clean up crew. I waded through knee-deep piles of shingles, loaded them onto a wheelbarrow and wheeled it over to the rented dumpster where my husband would pile drive it up into the dumpster (my flimsy girl arms, not much good at throwing, weren’t much good at dumping the wheelbarrow, either).

Day Three I divided my time between clean up, grocery shopping and more cooking. Days Four and Five, the guys were on their own—I had to go back to work.

But now we have a new roof. And my husband tore off the horrible vinyl siding on the exterior walls to reveal a lovely little 1920s house underneath. All that’s left is patching and painting and resurrecting the demolished flowerbeds and erecting the picket fence…and a million other things. But my husband will surely weather it all with his cheerful nature and goofy laugh.

I only hope a plague of locusts doesn’t sweep into town.

Love & Marriage

Why is June considered the classic wedding month? Though I got married in June, I’m hardly what comes to mind as a fresh-faced (read: young) “June Bride.” As a first-time bride at the age of 38, I was more of a Geriatric Bride. Maybe I should have gotten married in October (a month that suggests decay) or December (a month that suggests age, as in “May/December romance”).

Be that as it may, wedding season is upon us. If you needed further proof of that, just take a look at this story that recently ran on findingDulcinea: “More Dog Owners Performing ‘Holy Muttrimony’”

Wow. Dogs are getting married but homosexual human couples cannot. I wonder if gay canine couples are allowed to get married? I’m sure the whole canine marriage movement was probably started by a dog clothing/accessories company trying to increase sales. So many things in our soulless, capitalist culture seem to be, at the core, all about the act of making money. (Even a gay friend, when talking about gay marriage, recognized the economic boost that would occur as a result of legalizing gay marriage. “Just think of all those gay couples registering at Crate+Barrel,” he said.)

Though the Wedding Industrial Complex may be unstoppable, I don’t see marriage in Leo’s future. Sure, I wanted him to be a part of our wedding ceremony as our ring bearer. I pictured him wearing a snappy bowtie with the rings nestled under a little hat on top of his head, like those that bellhops wear in old movies. But there was no way I would stress him out with a flight to the East Coast, so he stayed home with our roommate.

Then I tried to incorporate him into my vows: when I talked about the reasons I loved my husband-to-be, I said, “And I love you because you love my dog, Leo.” After the rehearsal, my future husband said, with arched eyebrow, “Do you really have to mention Leo in our wedding?” So I took that line out. Begrudgingly.

Alas, Leo was not part of our wedding. And I’m pretty sure he’s a confirmed bachelor. Until he was rescued and brought to Portland, he was “fully intact.” We like to joke that he has puppy offspring all over the South—that he was a ramblin’ man who spread his seed far and wide.

When “Dark Water Rising” (a documentary on the animal rescues of Hurricane Katrina) was released, I had to see it, if only to see if Leo made a cameo appearance. He didn’t, thankfully—given the awful conditions those poor animals were found in.

One animal rescuer in the film commented on the large number of pit bulls that were rescued, and the number of dogs showing evidence of dog fighting, and the alarming number of dogs that weren’t spayed or neutered. “I’ve never seen so many balls!” she declared.

Yep, Leo was one of those dogs. But now he has no balls, and no desire to fraternize with other dogs, and is stubborn and headstrong with little in the way of communication skills—not exactly the makings of a Good Husband.

Sorry, Leo. You’ll never know the joys of registering at Crate+Barrel.

Strangely, Pleasantly

I’m delighted to report that I’m married now. So many barely perceptible changes have taken place. My fiancé (a term I was never comfortable using) has now become my husband. My eyelash extensions have all fallen out, leaving my stubby blonde lashes in their wake. And I have a thick band of silver on my left hand that glows like moonlight and makes me feel so very Grown Up.

Leading up to the wedding, there was lots of stress and insomnia. Lots of cooking and shopping and driving to and fro. Lots of talking and laughing with family. Lots of meager showers with zero water pressure (my mom’s house has plumbing like from the late 1800s).

The day of the wedding was warm and sunny with fluffy white clouds dotting the sky. Then immediately before the ceremony, the sky became dark and menacing. Thunder rumbled and it began to pour with rain. I was on my second glass of wine and beyond being perturbed.

I rode to the ceremony with my brother and his wife and baby girl. We sat in the car waiting for the rain to let up. My best friend Terri, who was serving as our Maid of Honor/Best Man/Rock, came to the car and asked what I needed. “Bourbon,” I told her. She promptly returned with a tumbler full.

Eventually the rain stopped and the chairs were toweled off. I was strangely, pleasantly calm as my parents walked me down the stone path serving as our aisle. I felt relaxed and happy. And why not? My man was there and waiting (I wouldn’t be stood up at the altar; yay!) the rain had stopped (yay!) and midway through the ceremony, the sun broke through the clouds and we were flooded with golden evening light for a Dawning of the Universe affect (triple yay!).

I had asked my cousin and his wife to surprise us with a reading. I had read “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein at their wedding about 15 years ago. His wife read an excerpt from “Les Miserables” and my cousin read “Hug O' War” by Shel Silverstein:
“I will not play at tug o' war.
I'd rather play at hug o' war,
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles
And rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses,
And everyone grins,
And everyone cuddles,
And everyone wins.”

How awesome is that?

We exchanged the vows we had written for each other, and then we exchanged the rings. My man said, “I am honored to call you my wife,” and put the ring on my finger. I was suppose to return the favor and say “I am honored to call you my husband.”

But instead, out came “I am honored to call you my wife.” My mom yelled out “Freudian slip” and everyone else erupted in laughter, including me and my new husband.

My new husband. My husband. My husband. The word feels strangely, pleasantly good.

A Full Set

I’m getting married in five days. I’m distracted, scattered, excited, nervous. Caught up in a flurry of activity one minute, staring into space a thousand miles away the next.

I started packing on Friday. Went shopping and worked on my vows on Saturday. Did laundry and more packing and had my eyelashes tinted on Sunday.

Eyelashes what? When a hippie friend of mine told me that she regularly had her eyelashes tinted, I said I’d never heard of anything more frivolous or ridiculous.

Then an old roommate who had gone to cosmetology school insisted on tinting my eyelashes once. She had me lay down, close my eyes, and then she saturated my eyelashes with black dye. I lay there for 10 minutes, letting it soak in, then she wiped it off. Voila—done. Instead of invisible blonde eyelashes, I had sweeping black eyelashes. No more itchy, gloppy mascara. And I wasn’t blinded by the experience! I was hooked.


I used to have my eyelashes tinted regularly when I lived in San Francisco. Salons where littered around SF like Starbucks. They were everywhere, they were fast and they were cheap. An eyelash tint was about $15, and took about half an hour.

However, eyelash tinting isn’t part of the Portland scene, apparently. I had a very difficult time trying to find a salon that did it, and the one salon I did find charged $30. So I don’t get my eyelashes tinted on a regular basis anymore. I save it for special occasions.

My wedding is a special occasion. When I made an appointment at the salon down the street, the Chinese gal asked if I wanted a “full set.” I wasn’t sure what she was talking about. Both eyes? Top and bottom lashes? Yes, and yes.

She had me lay down and close my eyes. And then she went to work, applying the dye. Another Chinese woman came in and they chatted and laughed back and forth in Chinese.

I thought of the Seinfeld episode when Elaine goes for a manicure and the Chinese ladies are insulting her as they work on her nails. “Princess wants her nails done, does she?”

What were these ladies saying about me? Surely they were insulting my inadequate eyelashes. “White girl with stubby lashes wants exotic black eyelashes, huh?”

A half hour passed. The ladies continued talking and laughing. Another half hour passed. The gal who was doing my eyelashes was hovering close to my face. “Cuse me,” she said when she burped.

An hour slid by. “What the hell is she doing?” I thought. This was taking far too long. And she seemed to be tugging and pulling on my eyelashes. I was getting really impatient. And irritated. When she worked on my left eye, she placed her hand under my nose, blocking my nostrils. Was she trying to kill me? Eyelash tinting had never been such an ordeal before. What the hell was going on? Another half hour passed. Then she announced that she was almost done, that it would be just another half hour. I was seething.

Finally, finally, she was finished. She told me to sit up. She handed me a mirror and instructed me to take a look. I had long, black, sweeping eyelashes. But they weren’t my own. I looked over to see a jar filled with little black eyelashes. Unattached to eyelids as they were, they looked like little eyelash corpses. Much to my surprise, she had given me eyelash extensions.

But that wasn’t the only surprise of the day. Next she charged me $137. I looked like Morticia, and it was gonna cost me $137 (plus tip) for the privilege.

Morticia, do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?

I do.

Ode to Leo’s Couch

Leo’s couch is, without a doubt, the 1973 Cadillac of couches.

A marvel of 1970s construction covered in green and gold fabric, the couch is large. Very large. It’s also beginning to cave in on itself, and it’s very lowest dipping point—where the left-end cushion and the middle cushion meet—is where Leo struggles to climb aboard and settle himself into sweet lounging oblivion.

It was the fiance’s furniture showpiece before I moved in and brought my couch along with me. But Leo claimed it as his own long before that.

When the fiancé and I were first dating, we spent weeknights at my little apartment and weekends at his house. I told Leo it was our country house and he made himself right at home. On the couch.

On Saturday nights, the fiancé and I would settle in to watch a movie and he would try to coax Leo off the couch. I, however, was happy to squeeze into whatever small space Leo left for us. It was surprising to me then how absolutely fulfilling I found this simple act: squeezing onto the couch with my man and my dog made me feel downright giddy.

Maybe it was because I had been single for so long, with the couch all to myself. It also brought to mind a photo of my mom’s family in the 1950s.

It was New Year’s Eve and my grandmother (who died when my mom was only two years old), my grandfather and six kids (my mom the baby on an older sister’s lap) are all crammed together on one couch (and a pulled-up chair). All tousled hair and party hats and noisemakers. I can almost feel the body warmth in that photo, smell the smells of kids and old slippers, feel the elbows and hips of the bodies seated next to each other, on top of each other. Isn’t this the intimacy of home and family life that we all desire?

Funny to think that our furniture plays a part in this intimacy. Silent, reliable, mere props on the stage of our daily productions. Barely noticed and taken for granted. Until years later, that is, when we see them in pictures and ridicule them for falling out of fashion. An orange velvet chair? A purple flowered couch? We point and laugh. “What was I thinking?” we ask.

Perhaps children understand the true essence of furniture best. A child’s world is such a small world—usually the confines of a house. So much time is spent on the floor, climbing on the furniture, jumping off the furniture, building blanket forts with the furniture. It’s children who come to be familiar with the undersides of tables and chairs and beds, the thrilling discoveries that lurk beneath couch cushions, the peculiarities of patterns in upholstery.

When my parents divorced, my father moved out and left behind his Lazy Boy recliner. It was green with armrests of wood and a wood lever on the lower right side that kicked up the footrest. I was six years old, my brother was three years old, and the recliner became Ours. It was big enough for both of us to snuggle in and watch “Little House on the Prairie” or “Happy Days.” It often served as the main pillar of a blanket fort. And the armrests were perfect as pretend motorcycles that we could race, side by side (though we often fought over who got the right side with the lever, because it made a perfect kick start).

The recliner is long gone from my mom’s house but it’s still clear in my mind’s eye. I can see where the green fabric was wearing thin, where the wood armrests were beginning to splinter, where cookie crumbs were likely to gather. I can still sense its bulk, still see the gouges we made in the wood floor every time we moved it, still remember how it smelled when I buried my face in it to do a headstand.

The fiancé says we need to get rid of Leo’s couch, that it’s stinking up the house. I tell him no way, that Leo will be buried on that couch. I picture Leo resting in peace on the couch, being lowered by a crane into his grave.

Or maybe a burial at sea would be nicer. I’ll launch Leo and his couch into the Pacific Ocean and watch as they float away into the sunset. Leo Mosquito Burrito riding the Cadillac of couches to the Other Side.

This might be a fitting way for them both to go.