Stupid parasites

Nelly's gut is rife with a parasite that doesn't normally affect healthy adult dogs. So no, the vet said, we shouldn't have to worry about Toby getting sick too.

Ha! Within four hours, that assessment was proven oh so wrong. We spent all night letting Toby out. He was one uncomfortable puppy.

So after a second trip to the vet, our kitchen resembles a pharmacy:

And I am once again home-bound for the day. With neither dog able to go more than 2 hours without a bathroom break, and two dogs...well, you do the math. Until the meds kick in, somebody is always poopin' around here.

Unfortunately, this particular parasite never leaves their system. It's a nasty little single-cell bugger, and if I understand correctly, it gets inside the cells that line the intestines and literally causes them to explode. My poor dogs' intestines are being dynamited from within. It's often present in dogs, but usually only makes them sick if some other illness or stress weakens their system. Their bodies need to learn how to keep it under control on their own, once the meds help fight back this onslaught, and for the rest of their lives, we'll have to pay attention to the health of their digestive flora and immune systems. So in a weird way, it's good news to have Toby sick too, because that indicates an unusually virulent form of the bug, not an undetected immune system problem in Nelly, which would have been more worrisome. Silver linings!

We also got a chuckle out of the chart notes from Nelly's ER visit. The emergency vets are awesome, but you can tell they're working fast, and this leads to the occasional unintentional humor in the chart notes:

Pertinent History: Nelly presented for evaluation after having diarrhea for the past 2 days. She had multiple episodes of diarrhea in the house today. She traveled to Canada for a month of camping recently. The other dog in the house is not having diarrhea. Nelly is otherwise an apparently healthy cat.

Who knew! She's been a cat all along. It sure explains a few things.

Sometimes, three is NOT a magic number

Today I got home from work to find that Nelly had [warning: discomfiting material] splattered the house with explosive diarrhea. We know it was Nelly because she'd had some symptoms yesterday. This morning I left the house with a nagging feeling that she might be sicker than we thought, but I just couldn't bring myself to up-end yet another day of work for a personal emergency. There was the whole water heater thing. I was scheduled to take Eva in for service today (an amusing anecdote on THAT follows), after blowing off the garage twice at the last minute already: once because I had to drain my leaking water heater, and then a few days later when I just completely spaced it. I couldn't face making a last-minute cancellation call to them AGAIN, because I hate looking like a ditz. I know, pride goeth before a fall (or in this case, before a house full of poo).

Anyhoo, that turned out to be a poor choice.

So Enrico has bundled her off to the emergency vet, which is clear across town, and most likely a three-hour excursion, minimum. He immediately volunteered to do it, because by the time he got home I had, as he put it, done the worst task (namely, the cleaning of poo - our hardwoods will never be the same). So it seemed only fair. And I have to say, karmically speaking, he kind of owes me on this one, after that one time that I had to take Nelly to the emergency vet in the dead of night while he was out of town, oh, and, let's not forget THAT OTHER time when I again had to take BOTH dogs to the emergency vet while he was out of town, on the same day our car broke down and the house across the street burned in a massive middle-of-the-night conflagration. You see the trend here?

The other trend? Is the whole trouble-comes-in-threes thing. There was the aforementioned veterinary emergency/car trouble/arson day. And then a couple years ago there was the broken finger/car accident/house burglary combo. So my question is: Does the water heater/van repair/veterinary emergency count as three? Because the van repair wasn't really an emergency, it was pretty much expected. The price tag was much higher than anticipated, so maybe that counts; but it's not entirely clear, and now I'm on edge, waiting for the third shoe to drop.

I'm sure Nelly is fine, by the way, in case you are fretting about her. She probably has giardia or something. Dogs eat stupid shit; sometimes they get sick. It's only a big deal because they are (relatively) small and dehydrate quickly. I'm just glad it didn't happen while we were on the road.

Speaking of which (I know, this is too long and rather rambling, and I should probably break this out into two separate entries, or perhaps just shut up, but such is my state of mind at the moment), I did indeed take Eva in for a check-up today. As expected, she needed an oil change, air filters (engine and internal) and replacement of pretty much all her fluids. That wasn't a surprise, though just as everyone has warned us, it's crazy expensive to do anything to a Volkswagen. The special fairy-dust VW transmission fluid? Literally costs seven times as much as any other kind of transmission fluid. And they have to do this whole elaborate thing to change it. So it costs $350 fracking dollars. But since the transmission is kinda important, and we know it's a weak spot on this model, we gritted our teeth and told them to go ahead and do the work.

An hour later, the shop called me back.

"We just got your van up on the lift," he said, "and the underside is completely caked with, like, an inch of mud. The wheel wells, struts, underside, everything. Totally coated."

"That doesn't surprise me at all," I said calmly. "Like I explained, we spent a lot of time on gravel roads."

"Seriously, it's totally encased in mud. I'm surprised you didn't have any alignment problems. Where exactly did you go, anyway?"

I explained where we went. He thought that sounded cool. He expounded a bit more on the unbelievable extent of the mud.

"So, can you clean it off?"

"Well, yeah, we have a power washer that can do the job. But we think it's going to take about an hour, so we're going to have to charge you for labor."

"That's fine, I understand."

This was followed by a bit more of [Dude! the mud, THE MUD!], and when I hung up the phone, I cracked up. I envisioned every single mechanic in the shop - and this was a large place, not the two-man hole-in-the-wall we took it to before; Volkswagon Guru Man was on vacation - anyway, I envisioned every guy in the shop standing underneath the lift, gazing up in awe at Eva's belly. You ever seen that much mud? Not me. No way, me neither. Man, that's the most mud I have frickin' EVER seen underneath a car.

When I picked her her, I asked if this impression was correct, that this was indeed The Muddiest Vehicle they had collectively ever seen. The guy chuckled, and didn't really answer. But then he leaned forward conspiratorially, and said in hushed tones, "You ought to see the guy who did the work. He is filthy."

So I guess I made up for the fact that I blew them off twice, by providing them with a tale that they can relate for years to their spellbound children and grandchildren. The mud, THE MUD!

Worried Woo

Today the contractors are fixing the carport, as well as the fascia boards and gutters on the house. There is much banging. Nelly does not like this one bit. My fearless lioness is hiding under my desk, just as she did through the re-roofing and the re-plumbing. Poor little Woo-Dog.

I supposed it doesn't help that the last time somebody banged on the house, they were burglars busting in the front door. Both dogs are jittery. The three of us are very tightly packed in here today. Though some of us are more comfortable than others.

Toby makes a new friend!

On Friday Enrico and I were walking the dogs together, and a block from our house we saw a telephone pole flyer announcing that one of the Seward Park coyotes had been seen on that very intersection, at 5 am a few days earlier.

For those not in the loop, at least three coyotes have taken up residence in nearby Seward Park. They have been ranging out at night and have eaten a few pet cats, and attacked at least one little dog. They're not the first coyotes to take up residence in the city. State laws - passed by voter referendum about eight years ago - limit the government's ability to kill or even relocate this kind of wildlife. A friend of ours in another neighborhood told us that when coyotes moved in there, concerned neighbors called a community meeting to complain about their disappearing pet cats. To which the city said - hey, if you're letting your cat roam loose, you're breaking the law. Keep the kitty inside; problem solved.

In fact, my cursory web research on coyotes revealed that they're extremely common in cities, and one study estimated something like 2,000 of them in Chicago, for heaven's sake. Enrico and I are generally pleased whenever the wild animals reclaim a little of what humans have taken from them, and we live in hope that we might one day coexist in more peaceable harmony with all the flora and fauna. Plus we're generally fans of the whole canine genus, from the tame ones in our own house to the majestic wolves and coyotes who have been so ruthlessly demonized and hunted. So we're pretty excited about our new neighbors.

I asked Enrico if this would change his behavior when walking the dogs through Seward Park. He likes to take them over the top, on the trails through the wooded areas, where he lets Toby run off-leash. Yes, we know it's illegal, but it's quiet and woodsy up there, and lots of people do it. Enrico figured coyotes are wary of people and would be laying low during the day. The odds of encountering one seemed pretty unlikely.

So the very next day - yesterday - he toddled off to the park with the dogs, and whom should they meet, but - a coyote!

Toby took off like a shot after his distant cousin, Canis Latrens. Enrico called him back, and the coyote returned shortly thereafter. As Enrico leashed Toby up, the coyote began making a sound which Enrico could only describe as a high-pitched "scolding." The scolding continued for a sustained couple of minutes as Enrico high-tailed it down the hill with the dogs.

So, there will be no more off-leashing for Toby in Seward Park. It's somebody else's home now, and that must be respected. I hope the coyotes get enough to eat there. My guess is that the population of rabbits - pet bunnies unwisely released into the wild by their owners, along with many generations of offspring - are goners. Which is ok with me, since they really shouldn't be there. I wonder if we can also thank our new canine neighbors for the puzzling absence of rats over the last few months.

Anyway, there is a community workshop on "Coexisting with Coyotes" on Tuesday night at the Pritchard Beach Bathhouse; I think we'll go to learn more.

In other news: Farming is hard

A couple of weeks ago I saw this article in the paper, about a church group that has started a small farm with the goal of developing a farmers market in the Central Area of Seattle, one of the few neighborhoods that does not yet have a market. It's also the predominantly African-American part of town, and so the organizers of this effort also want to do it in a way that will keep the business dollars in the black community. Unfortunately, for various reasons they were going to have to move their plant starts to a new farm location, and were calling for volunteers to help re-plant.

So we headed down there on a Saturday morning, and spent about four hours helping out. There were probably a couple dozen people from the church, and maybe 75 additional random volunteers like us. Some of the plant starts were still in trays, but others had been pulled from the ground and were heaped in buckets. These latter needed to be replanted very quickly, before disintegrating into green goo, like the old lettuce at the bottom of the plastic bag. I mostly planted, and Enrico mostly hauled bucket after bucket of fertilizer (manure) to the newly turned beds.

After four hours, my legs hurt so badly from squatting, I was pretty sure I'd be walking like a duck forever. My lower back was screaming. When we got home, Enrico did not even make it into the house before falling asleep...in the back yard. He literally couldn't get through the door without sleeping. The only thing that got me in the house was the desire to shower the manure off. After just four hours. This is how hard it is to be a farmer. I am that much more appreciative of these people now every time I go to the farmers market.

The dogs were appreciative that Enrico was acting like a proper dog and lounging in the grass with them. Finally! they said, you are getting with the program around here. And the smell of manure was a big plus, too.

A day in the woods, and lessons from Toby

On Sunday we went hiking, our first warm-weather hike of the season. We had our last blizzard in the mountains just three weeks ago, the gem in the crown of our coldest-June-on-record. But then suddenly the temperatures shot up into the 90s this weekend. So we headed out into the woods.

The condition of many trails is still snowy or in the midst of massive melting; thus all but the lowest trails are off-limits unless you want to re-enact Napoleon's retreat from Russia. The middle fork of the Snoqualmie River was as high as we'd ever seen it, with the sudden heat wave releasing all that snow, and it was a lovely day:


When we take the dogs out for their first warm-weather hike of the summer, we always notice a distinct drop in their stamina from the previous year. Enrico still takes the dogs out to the woods all winter long in the snow, and although they are generally slowing down with age, they do better in cooler weather. Then summer comes, and each year we see a marked drop in their heat tolerance.

It started a few years ago on a hot, steep, dry trail, when they both just pulled over into a shady spot along the trail and laid down. This might sound like a perfectly sensible response to feeling hot, but it was unprecedented. Up until that point, the dogs' response to being somewhere fun was always, ALWAYS, to keep moving. Because as fun as this is right now? There could be something even better right around the corner!

So in deference to their advancing years, we starting limiting ourselves to cool, shady trails with abundant water. One year Toby started diving under the shade of the car at the end of a hike to cool off, and Nelly needed a lift into the car. In his youth, Toby would run madly up and down the trail for the whole hike, covering at least three times the distance of the rest of us, with a grace and speed to rival the cheetahs on the animal channel. But at some point he was content just to dash ahead and wait for us. We'd round a bend and there he'd be, happily surveying the woods as our scout, catching his breath before the next sprint. Now, in his 11th year, he ambles along with me, so sedately that I sometimes forget to take him off leash.

This year we noticed Toby's increased interest in the various holes and burrows created by the woodland residents. Animals create lots of hidey-holes in the woods - in the ground, in old tree logs, in tree roots, between the boulders of rock fields. Toby never seemed to notice them much before, probably because he was blasting by them at high speed. But now that he's moving more slowly, he notices and investigates. I halfheartedly warn him that one of these days he might stick his nose somewhere he regrets, like into a hornet's nest. But he doesn't care.

We consider Toby to be a role model - for his relentless enthusiasm for life, his boundless love, his spirit of optimism and forgiveness. There's a lot to admire there. And now, as he enters a slower, more reflective phase of his life, he reminds us of yet another important lesson: To remember to pause along the trail of life, to stop and smell the hidey-holes.

It's hard out there for a bird

A couple of weeks ago - on that one weekend that was actually sunny and warm, remember that? Vaguely? Before we returned to the wet 55-degree gloom without end, like when Narnia was plunged into constant winter by the evil queen?

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago it was warm. And I was cleaning up our patio and planting flowers for the summer season which might theoretically arrive, someday, when the evil queen is vanquished. I noticed Toby carefully inspecting a big tub full of junk that had been sitting by the patio for months. Actually it was full of blue-glass wine bottles which I've been collecting for years with which I plan to someday create a fabulous border around my flower garden. That is even less likely to happen than the vanquishing of the evil queen, but I digress.

I noticed Toby sniffing around in there and it occurred to me that the bottles probably contained really nasty stagnant water, and since Toby is one of those dogs with an inexplicable taste for really disgusting things, I shouted at him to leave it, because by golly I wasn't spending a rare sunny day on yet another trip to the damn emergency vet. But he ignored me. And next thing I knew, I saw him making that unmistakable snapping motion with his head, the motion of a predator attempting the knockout plow to its prey.

I'd seen this move before, when Toby killed a rat right before our eyes a couple of years ago, and I immediately assumed he had another rodent trapped in the plastic tub. So I grabbed his collar and began gingerly pulling bottles out of the tub - only to find a clutch of four baby wrens, flapping about in a panic.

Now, rats are one thing, but I draw the line at baby birds. We have a long history of giving shelter to bird families on this property (see here and here). So I hauled Toby away by the neck and stuck in him the house. Then I went back to the tub and pondered my options, with Toby howling his protests from inside the house, and the mama wren screaming hers from around my head.

I gingerly pulled the bottles out, because the poor birds were flailing against them in panic and I was afraid they'd hurt their little wings. With obstacles out of the way, two of them managed a wobbly, low-elevation flight to safety beyond our fence. But two remained, and they didn't seem to have the skills to get out on their own - which begs the question of how they got in there in the first place? Because there was no sign of a nest in there, or of eggshells. Perhaps they'd run in through the drainage holes at the bottom of the tub, I don't know.

Eventually I managed to help all the babies get beyond the fence, and I could hear the frantic family reunion off in the bushes. I let Toby out; he made a big show of pouting. Later that night, I heard chirping on the front porch and peered out to see three of the young ones assembled on our doormat. For a while, I'd see the family around the property, but I've lost track of them now. They're probably all grown up and indistinguishable from all the other wrens.

This morning in the wee hours we heard a crazy cacophony of birds. The racket was coming from a tree across the street, and Enrico stopped by on his way to work to see what the fuss was about. There he found a raccoon, calmly eating a bird. He said the raccoon was surrounded by all manner of birds - crows, wrens, starlings, robins, flickers - angry and protesting with all their might. Many of them would normally be enemies - I've seen crows raid other birds' nests for a snack - but they were all united against the raccoon. Not that it made much difference. Not much they could do against such brazenness, not to mention the opposable thumbs. I hope the raccoon wasn't eating my little wren friends.

And, on top of that, the peregrine falcons who live downtown on the Washington Mutual tower lost their entire brood this year. All three babies died. Falcons have been nesting in that tower for almost 15 years, and each year the good people of Puget Sound follow their adventures excitedly, thanks to a video feed. Remember the year Stewart had to raise the chicks alone after his first mate, Virginia, died tragically after crashing into another glass skyscraper? Oh, how we cheered him on, that plucky single dad. Our hearts were warmed when he came back the next year with a new wife, Belle. But this year, there is tragedy again. The scientists are investigating.

It's hard out there for a bird.

The Incident, Part II

Many years ago, right after we bought our house and got Nelly, we moved in with a friend for a couple of weeks while we had some remodeling work done. Our friend had a very sweet dog named Sunny (may she rest in peace), the most loving, playful, non-dominant dog on earth. She had absolutely no interest in being the boss of anyone. As opposed to Nelly, who still hopes to get the Ring of Power and make us all love her and despair, or even Toby, who wouldn't mind being the boss of somebody, but dude? It just takes too much time away from waxing his board, you know?

At that point we only had Nelly, and she and Sunny were great friends because Nelly could be as bossy as she wanted, and Sunny would just be all: peace out! behold my belly. And then they'd run around the yard and gnaw on each other until they were both exhausted and covered with slobber.

But one evening we humans were startled by the terrifying roar of a dog fight, and we rushed to the kitchen to find that Nelly had Sunny flat on her back, pinned to the floor at the neck. It appeared that Sunny had the temerity to suggest that Nelly stop eating her food, because even hippy love dogs have boundaries that begin at the food bowl. We banished Nelly to the bedroom and disciplined her in the firmest ways we could imagine. Sunny's whole body was shaking, a sight I will never forget, to see an animal trembling like that in shock and fear. She was uninjured, and I wouldn't have blamed my friend for being very upset; but she was very gracious.

Within half an hour, the dogs were the best of friends again. You would never have known anything had happened. All of the humans, however, remained utterly traumatized, and for a long time - I mean YEARS - we referred back to this in hushed tones as The Incident.

So, fast forward. While we were in France recently, we engaged our friends' kids to come by the house and let the dogs out each afternoon. The two older girls have been gradually shedding a long-held fear of dogs, while the younger one has, seemingly from birth, adored all animals with the burning fierceness of the sun. The elder girls are just old enough to start taking on small jobs for money, so we hired them to stop by each day with their parents just to let the dogs out in the yard for a bit.

It's striking to me how completely normal behavior for children just happens, by sheer accident, to be incredibly rude in Dog Language. Kids hug and drape themselves over dogs, a gesture that is an extreme assertion of dominance in Doggish. Kids are short and therefore look dogs right in the face, showing their teeth in a big smile, which is downright threatening to a canine. Kids do all this while speaking in high-pitched (i.e. submissive) tones, sending a confusing mixed message of subordination and dominance. I frankly marvel that there aren't more dog-bite incidents involving kids.

We've trained all our friends' kids to focus on Toby because, we explain, Nelly is old and achy and doesn't like much attention. Toby may not like the hugging, but his tolerance appears to be without limits. And even so, sometimes when our young friends are draped over him in an expression of ecstatic love, Toby looks at us with a puzzled and pleading look that says: Why is this small human acting so rude?

Our friends all came by the day we returned from France, and were bursting to tell us how much they Love the dogs! And are such good friends now! We chatted with their mom about the trip over the din of girls running around with the dogs. I heard the littlest girl say, "Nelly doesn't like as much petting as Toby," and that probably should have gotten my attention. Then I noticed that two of the girls had Nelly cornered, and one of them was leaning over her, holding her head firmly between her hands, staring her in the eye with their faces not six inches apart, murmuring sweet endearments. And even as my brain said "Danger!", there was a growl, and a snap of teeth, and then wailing.

Nelly did not bite. She just growled and snapped, which is actually standard Doggish for "you are making me feel threatened and anxious, and I really need you to stop doing what you're doing." It is the canine equivalent of using your words - asking your sister to please stop pestering you while you're trying to read, instead of just punching her in the head. I have no doubt that Nelly first tried saying this politely in Doggish - flattening her ears against her head, probably trying to break the threatening eye contact despite being caught in a head-lock - and I also have no doubt that she had no intention of biting. Because the whole reason wolves evolved complex communication is to avoid actual conflict or violence, which only weakens the pack. In the ten years I've known Nelly, I've only seen her snap at a person four times - and once was at a veterinarian shoving a kennel cough vaccine up her nose, which seemed kinda fair.

BUT. But. Despite all this rational logic, I cannot stop feeling badly about this. I felt badly even as our friend B., the Mom, matter-of-factly reviewed with them all the ways that the girls had contributed to this unhappy event (after first verifying that no actual biting had taken place). She reminded them that they had been studying animals in school and learned that cornering an animal almost always makes it afraid, which makes it dangerous. I imagine there are plenty of parents who would've just whisked their kids out of there and vowed never to let them near our vicious beast again; so of course I'm relieved that B. was so gracious about it.

But despite all that, it's been a week and still, I look at Nelly, and I think about The Incident, Part II, and I feel badly.

Tomorrow I'm taking care of the girls for the afternoon, so I'll be interested to see if there is more processing. I want to treat this with just the right level of seriousness, neither minimizing nor overdramatizing. Kids do need to learn how to behave around animals, and Americans are notorious for absurdly anthropomorphizing our pets instead of respecting them enough to treat them like animals. Just as we have a reputation for ignorance about the language and culture of other peoples, we often can't be bothered to learn the ways of the animals who live among us, expecting them to simply acculturate and conform to human ways; we become surprised and frustrated when they persist in being dogs, or wolves, or bears.

I can recall being actually bitten as a kid, on the nose, on two separate occasions, by dogs belonging to family and friends, and here I am all grown up with two of the damn beasts in my house. So I hope that years from now, I may still be talking in hushed tones about The Incident, Part II, while these girls will be grown-up young women, perhaps with a dog of their own as a best friend.

The little-read blog of 9-Fingered Flora

I know, I have been completely AWOL from the blogger scene. I'm sure the blogger scene has suffered greatly for it, too. I have been described by my parents as "the one that does not blog."

I haven't had much in the way of inspiration, what can I say? But here's something new and different that happened this week: My dog broke my finger.

Yes, that's right. It's a variant on the "dog ate my homework" excuse for being lame, a variant which can only be rolled out selectively, but hey, it comes with props! In the form of a shiny metal contraption, on your hand!

It was not her fault (yes, it was Nelly). It was an accident (no, she did not bite me - sheesh, several people have asked me that - Nelly has a lot of flaws but biting people has never been one of them). I was walking the beasts and we rounded a corner and encountered a dog up close suddenly, and Nelly was startled, and lunged (lunging at other dogs HAS always been one of her flaws). The leash must've been wrapped around my hand funny, and SNAP - I actually felt my ring finger break.

Of course it's a pain in the ass (I say, typing one-handed-ish), but in fact I am an old hand (no pun intended) at cracked extremities. Fingers, feet...at least this time it's my left hand. If only I'd thought to remove my wedding ring as coolly as I iced, splinted and called the doctor. With just a scosh more swelling, they'll have to cut my ring off.

Tomorrow I go to a specialist, who will tell me what kind of contraption I have to wear and for how long, on the blackened and twisted appendage that looks (and I quote) "like a hideous thing that crawled into a hole and died." Did you know that the three segments of your finger could actually take on a zig-zag shape? It's true!

Meanwhile I have lots and lots of work to do! So many people want our consulting services, and on the community organizing side of my work, regular citizens are turning out in droves, clamoring to change the world. It's busy but quite satisfying. I've been surfing the creative force of the universe, and one stinkin' broken finger isn't going to kill my buzz.

(And no, that is not a Vicotin buzz speaking. I have 'em, but I haven't taken a single one yet. Because I'm an extremity-breakin' bad-ass, that's why)

Well-trod trail

We are having some sad and stressful times in the Starkadder family, so instead of writing about all that I'll return to comfortable and happy territory: the dogs.

Nelly, who just turned 11, has decided that she does not want to go on walks in the morning. Or rather, she wants to go, but not until it is sufficiently light and dry out. For years Enrico has rousted himself at 6 am to feed the dogs, let them out, and then walk them. Lately, once the breakfast is done, Nelly bolts for the bedroom and jumps up on the bed next to me. She hunkers down and stares at Enrico, a black dog invisible in the darkened room except for her reflective eyes, clearly daring him to try to get her out the door.

This is remarkable not just because Nelly, like all dogs, loves walks. It is also remarkable because she has a complex set of largely self-imposed rules, one of which - nay, several of which - involve the etiquette of the humans' bed, otherwise known as Home Base. Dogs may only come up on Home Base upon invitation from the humans. Said invitations may only be accepted in the morning after breakfast, or during a daytime nap involving one human (but never two). Dogs may not spend the night on Home Base, except when one of the humans fails to come home for the night. Getting up onto Home Base in the evening before bedtime is forbidden when both humans are at home, even if a sincere invitation is extended. It's an abomination against the universe, and that's all there is to it. The fact that Toby is willing to break this taboo each and every evening does not change the absolute wrongness of it, and Nelly is confident she will be proven right on this score eventually.

Home Base also has magical protective properties. It is the only place Nelly will flip on her back and present her belly for rubbing. She's a proud and cautious dog, and Home Base is the one spot where she feels safe enough to make herself that vulnerable, even to us. It's the one place where she doesn't mind being packed together in close quarters, where Toby is allowed to snuggle up against her. There is no fighting on Home Base, not even so much as a warning growl. Home Base is the inner sanctum of the den, where the pack piles in together in a heap for warmth and comfort.

Thus it makes sense that Nelly takes refuge there from the unspeakable horrors of a pre-dawn walk in the Seattle drizzle. What's surprising is that she is letting herself up without an invitation, breaking one of the most basic rules. Once up, even the offer of freeze-dried liver will not pry her loose. "If she had clamps on her feet," Enrico said one morning, "she would engage them. She's not coming down."

So Enrico and Toby head off into the dark, dank morning now, and Nelly and I spend a little longer curled up together, content to wait for a more light before venturing out of the den.

All is forgiven

Toby had a very hard day yesterday, poor guy. I had to leave him at the vet to be sedated so they could shave and clean out his infected foot, which must have been very painful. Usually our dogs love the vet's office no matter what appalling things happen to them. But today, for the first time, when the vet led Toby towards The Back Room where bad things happen, Toby looked like a cartoon character, putting on the brakes with all four feet and refusing to move.

So I walked back with them as they tried to take care of business without sedation first. It was a new vet at the clinic, and he was so very sweet and gentle with Toby, even as they had him in what I call the Unbreakable Body Lock - a technique where you get the dog on its side, and then reach over its body to raise all four feet and its head slightly off the ground. Lacking any pivot points to on the ground, the dog will immediately stop struggling, it's really quite impressive. But that doesn't mean he's happy about it, and despite the kindness of the vet staff, the look on Toby's face was one of naked fear.

So we agreed it would be kinder and easier to sedate him, and I left him in their care for a few hours. When I picked him up he was so relieved to see me that I just hustled him into the car to get him home, ignoring the other message he was trying to convey: that he really had to go to the bathroom. Which I should have known, that's always the case after sedation or anesthesia. We'd only gone a few blocks when I realized he was relieving himself in the car, our dog with the bladder of steel, and he had a look of such embarrassment and misery as he broke a fundamental rule of both humans and canines, soiling his living space. I told him it was ok, it was my fault, but he huddled in a corner, making himself as small as possible. I'm so sorry, buddy, I said.

It was a hard day for a dog who almost never lets life get him down.

And yet today, miraculously, all is forgiven. This is why we always say Toby is our role model - his unsquashable ability to bounce back from anything with complete love, joy and curiosity.

No, no, not the feet!

It is wound season again for Toby, and he's got a bad one between the pads of his feet. This is the worst, the absolute worst! I have treated literally hundreds of small wounds on this dog, and the trick, the absolute most important thing, is keeping them dry. Trim back the fur, keep him from licking it, and within hours there's noticeable improvement. I have a miracle spray from the vet, too, but I pride myself on rarely needing it. Early detection and fearless trimming are the keys to success.

But not the feet, no! You cannot keep the area between the foot pads dry, you just can't, and he hates to have his feet touched under the best of circumstances. He's pissed at me, and I'm bruised all over from being kicked - it's not intentional, he has this spastic reflexive kicking thing going, even when he just stands on that foot. You wouldn't think that skinny little leg could pack such a wallop, unless you'd seen him running at a full sprint with the powerful, digging hindquarters of a puma. Then imagine all that force aimed directly at your forehead.

After three days we're both feeling battered and frustrated, and his foot is - well, let's just say "oozing" and leave it at that. So I think there's going to have to be another trip to the vet, where they will do really painful things to clean the whole thing out and hopefully give us some other miracle remedy. And again, I wonder - what happened in Olden Days? Surely working dogs cut their feet all the time. Did people have better folk solutions for it? Would the wound just heal on its own, eventually? Did dogs simply die of a cut foot? It couldn't possibly have been this complicated.

I need a translator

As I sit here I am listening to a conversation that Toby is having with a dog up the street. The windows of the house are open now what with the warm weather - a stifling, record-setting 98 degrees on Wednesday - so the Canine Communication Network is in full swing.

The conversation goes like this:
Toby: Woof Woof Woof! Woof.
Other Dog: Arf!
Toby: Woof Woof Woof! Woof.
OD: Arf! Arf!
Toby: Woof Woof! arrrRoof!
OD: Arf Arf Arf! Arf!

What does this mean? I am a person who has spent a lot of time learning about canine communication, partly because I am a lifelong student of language and partly due to the responsibility of having two dogs. It pays to know what they're saying to each other. There's lots that I don't understand, but I jolly well know the difference between "Hey, you wanna play with me?" and "If you don't avert your gaze in the next 2.5 seconds, I'm going to have to kick your ass."

But I have never had much success at interpreting these long-distance conversations with neighboring dogs. I know the barking has meaning, because our dogs will sit and listen for a long time, clearly hearing but not responding; and all of a sudden something new gets said and they leap to the window, barking back. Or they run outside, or to the front door. The message has changed.

At a high level I can tell the difference between Sound the Alert! barking, versus "Is there anyone out there?" barking, versus "I'm scared and alone" barking. But that's about it. Sound the Alert barking seems to have many, many variations. Oh how I would love to have one of those sci-fi devices that allow people to visit alien planets and hear everything in English.

Where to begin?

I guess I'll begin with the Check Engine light. Somehow in my mind, that's where it all started.

Our car's check engine light has been on and off for a couple weeks, and it's notoriously finicky so my usual policy is to ignore it for awhile, until it proves to me that it's serious. Which it did, last Thursday, when the Oil light also went on and I found the dipstick bone dry. I stopped for a temporary fix, which took up a whole morning on a busy day, but a permanent repair still loomed.

Enrico left town, Toby got his ear infection, and by Monday I decided I had to bite the bullet and return the car to a state of reliability. This entails a 90-minute commute each way to the mechanic and then to work, including two buses. But by 4:00 yesterday, I was on the first of the bus legs home and feeling good about getting things tidy. The car was fixed, and as always, the mechanics cleaned it to an unrecognizably shiny luster inside and out. Cousin Flora likes things tidy.

At home I found a note from the dog-walker suggesting Nelly might have another bladder infection, and after walking her myself, I reluctantly had to agree. Her last infection was exactly a year ago, when Enrico was also out of town, and in trying to make it through the night I ended up at the emergency vet at 4 am with Nelly, while Toby attempted to destroy the house back home in a fit of panic. Good times!

Fun as that was, I decided to head straight to the emergency clinic this time, in the hopes of wrapping things up by bedtime. I took Toby along figuring he could always wait in the car. I heaved a sigh as I heard Nelly throw up en route, all over my newly spotless car. But then the clinic was pretty empty and we breezed through, relatively speaking. Although they were unable to get a urine sample from Nelly - who after all had been trying to pee every 5 minutes for the past several hours - the vet took my word for it and sent us home with antibiotics.

When we got home I left some of the barfy mess in the carport to deal with later, gave Nelly her first pill, and had myself some dinner and a nice glass of wine. It was a long day, but both the car and the dog were dealt with. Life had thrown me a couple of logistical curve balls, but things were back on track.

I'd been asleep an hour when the dogs woke me up with their barking. At first it was a typical alarm bark, which I planned to ignore, and then suddenly, they amped up to a frenetic pitch I had never heard before, ever. I hopped out of bed and looked out the window. The house across the street was on fire.

This is the house across the street that was sold, and the lot is being subdivided, and whose temporary occupants were cleaned out by the police. The one with Garry the Exceptional oak. I called 911, and by the time the fire trucks arrived the house was engulfed in flames. Intimidated by the size of the blaze, I waited to step outside until I saw the fire trucks, and as I walked out onto my front porch I felt the heat of it hit my face from clear across the street. Dozens of firefighters descended on the place with hoses and chain saws and ladders.

The dogs were barking frantically inside and I realized they couldn't see me from the window, and all they knew was that I had stepped out into this hellish, terrifying maelstrom, and they couldn't find me. So I went back, leashed them up, and took them out to the front steps with me. At first they were interested and excited, but soon they just became anxious. The noise and the smells and the lights were overwhelming, disorienting. I took them back inside but it was enough to assuage their fears, to get to see for themselves where I was disappearing to.

Suffice to say we got very little sleep, because it turns out? Full-on house fires are loud, what with four fire trucks pumping, the firefighters yelling and clanking their oxygen tanks and ladders, the screaming chain saws, the roar of the fire itself, and the EXPLODING KITCHEN. The noise and the light made sleep impossible, and I was joined by a neighbor as we watched the firefighters do their jobs.

It made me sad to watch it burn, because for ten years I knew the couple who had lived in that house for 40 years, raised five kids there, and when their daughter died they raised a granddaughter there too. I know it's slated for demolition anyway, but it was somebody's home once.

I eventually got a bit of fitful sleep and awoke around 5 am as most of the fire crew packed up and left. Shortly, the forensics investigators showed up to do their thing. One of the remaining firefighters told me this is the latest in a string of arsons in the neighborhood, all at corner properties like ours. How lovely. I have a call into the community policing officer for our precinct to try to learn more.

I mainlined some coffee and took Nelly back to the regular vet - Toby in tow, again, because the dogs were just as jittery as I - to try to get the elusive urine sample (failure, again). By the time Enrico gets back I will have had two trips to the mechanic, five trips to the vet, and a sleepless night watching the neighbor's house burn.

Plus, I believe I may have appeared on Fox News in my pajamas, which is just the icing on the cake, really. Who doesn't aspire to that?

In short, I feel like I've come to the end of our own little action-packed episode of 24. I feel like I've lived several weeks' time since I stepped onto that #65 bus just 24 short hours ago.
P.S. Garry the Exceptional Oak is fine. A little singed, but handsome as ever. The firefighters were just as smitten with him as the rest of us and worked heroically to keep the flames away from him. Here's a picture of Garry, as requested:

The little man of the house

Enrico is off on an 8-day backcountry trip. It's just me and the beasties for a week. I think Toby knows he's temporarily Man of the House, and he takes the job very seriously. He has an extra spring in his step, a look of proud alertness in his face.

He also has an ear infection. We spent almost two hours at the vet this morning just waiting for him to have his annual checkup and shots. They were running behind schedule because of an emergency. At one point I saw the staff carry out a beautiful brindle dog, looking weak but alive, with its puffy-eyed owner following behind. The vet assistants kept coming into our exam room and apologizing for the delay, and I assured them it was no big deal. We were once the emergency, and Nelly would not be alive today if we hadn't monopolized everyone's full attention that morning. I'm sure lots of people waited because of us. I do not begrudge the brindle and his owner an hour of our time.

I thought about rescheduling, but by that point we were an hour in and I expected the checkup to be quick. Toby is always incredibly healthy. His ailments tend to be self-inflicted injuries of various exasperating sorts - consuming a bag of chocolates in their wrappers, getting bitten on the face by a rat, worrying a flea bite into an oozing wound, gouging himself while hurdling a log in the forest.

But warm weather has brought swimming, and Toby is prone to ear infections. Now I have the joy of flushing his ears out twice a day, squeezing the liquid in and then squooshing his ear canal around with my fingers - squoosh, squoosh - and then leaping back, eyes and mouth closed, as he vigorously shakes it all loose. Boy, will Enrico ever be sorry he missed this!

When exactly was kibble invented?

You'd have to live in a cave to have missed the story about the recalled pet food causing liver failure in cats and dogs. A story in the news today reported that pet owners are choosing to home-cook food, and sales of cookbooks and nutritional guides for dogs have skyrocketed. But then the story added a note of caution: "Veterinarians warn that making balanced meals for pets can be complicated and should only be a temporary remedy until the scare passes."

Excuse me? What exactly did canis lupus and felis catus eat for tens of thousands of years before humans figured out how to chop up the most disgusting, unusable portions of animals, freeze-dry them into hard little rocks, and dye them a vaguely meat-like color?

Sure, there are things dogs shouldn't eat, like onions and chocolate. But if it's so hard to figure out what a dog should eat, shouldn't we be a little uncomfortable at being so completely ignorant of what we're currently feeding our pets? I know Americans are are famous for over-doting on our pets, but they do rely on us for their survival. We owe them a degree of care.

And here is where I make a potentially embarassing admission: We have home-cooked our dogs' food for seven years. We use a rice cooker to make big pots of brown rice and quinoa, and mix it with a variety of proteins: meat, tofu, eggs, tuna. The dogs do get some dog food too, but most of their meals are a mix of home-cooked carbs and protein. I know, this sounds nutty. But let me mention a few things in our defense.

First of all, we always have a pot of brown rice and quinoa available for our own consumption, just about the most nutritious mix of whole grains you can cook up.

Second, we started doing this after Nelly got her teeth cleaned, when the discharge instructions called for cooking the dog food for a couple of meals to make it soft - and let me tell you, the stink that came off that dog food made the whole house reek like a glue factory. So we asked ourselves, what the hell is in this stuff? I did a little research and let me tell you, you don't want to know.

Third, once we started feeding them rice & protein, the change in the dogs' health was immediate and striking. Their coats became absolutely luxuriant. Nelly stopped inexplicably throwing up all the time. Their water consumption dropped by about two-thirds. Apparently, living on kibble is like subsisting on vitamin-enhanced extra-salty Doritos.

So is it actually so hard to cook your pets' food? In our experience, the answer is no, and yes. No, it's not onerous, once you get into the routine. Preparing their meals is not at all complicated. But it was surprisingly hard to find out what dogs need, nutritionally, because the pet food industry has has virtually eradicated any memory of life before kibble - circa 1950. When I looked for a book on canine nutrition - not cutesy cook books filled with baked dog treats, but an actual nutrition guide - it was very hard to find. But find one I did, and when I conferred with our vet, she was extremely supportive, but admitted that vet schools now spend about one day - one day - on dog and cat nutrition. "If Nelly were a cow, I could help you," she said, "but honestly, armed with your book, you know about as much as I do." About the only advice she gave us was: feed them more organ meats, because canines in the wild eat the whole animal.

For what it's worth, although our guys are big fans of organ meats, their favorite form of protein, hands down, is fish. They would turn themselves inside out for a can of tuna.

Thus, though it was not my intention, I come back to my previous post, the politics of food. How interesting.

Sad Mad Dog

"Nelly seems sad. Do dogs get sad?"

This was the note that I left the dog-walker yesterday. He has been walking our guys on and off for about seven years, and he's a licensed vet technician, so I occasionally ask him questions about the dogs' health or well-being.

Instead of jotting an answer on the notepad as he usually does, he left a long and very sweet voice mail message. Yes, dogs get sad, or at least some canine equivalent. And yes, he had noticed it too - She seemed sad last week, and today she was just plain cranky and stubborn - "We had words," he said.

I've been working mostly at home since October, and the dog-walker was on a hiaitus until last month when I picked up a regular work commitment out in the world. He said the older dogs get, the less they like change, and she is probably upset that I'm away from home more. So she's going through a range of emotions, from sad to mad, but eventually she will be her old self again.

I certainly know that she doesn't like me gone. Enrico leaves for work five days a week and gets no more than a glance from Nelly, but I head into the shower and she has a fit. She clearly doesn't want me to leave her side, ever. Which is weird, because she's such an independent soul, not like Toby who loses all sense of his own identity if he's not in the presence of another being to absorb his boundless LOVE.

To make matters worse, I changed her favorite piece of furniture. She's napped up on the new daybed once or twice, but is clearly still displeased. I have heaped change upon change on her. And so she's sad.

And mad. Saturday we bathed the dogs, and she was pissed. She never likes baths, but usually practices nonviolent noncooperation - a dramatic woe-is-me act, sitting when we want her to stand, refusing to shake at the right time, etc. But this time, we could feel the anger coming off her like a physical force. She clearly would have bolted without a firm grip to the neck (and believe me, you do NOT want a sudsy, 60-pound dog to escape the tub). Afterwards as we were drying her off, she was huffing and sputtering, as if speechless with rage. It was a strange kind of anger, very human, because dogs have canine ways of communicating regular dog anger - a warning growl, a snap, a fight - and this was none of that. Just a sense of overwhelming, frustrating emotion roiling through her soggy little body.

So it appears that I brought this on her by changing jobs and couches. I am sorry, little one. It had to happen. We'll all ride out the change together. Stick close to Toby - his boundless love is a balm for all ills.

The perfect daybed, snubbed

Well it sure has been busy down here. The perfect daybed did in fact arrive, and I spent much of the weekend reconfiguring the office/guest room, making it ready for my sister's visit and also just more pleasant and functional as an office. I'm getting curtains altered for an impossibly small sum of money at one of the many Asian-run tailor shops nearby, and then the space will be pretty well done.

We gave the old loveseat - seen in so many pictures of the dogs, e.g. below - to friends for their kids' playroom. The kids were very excited to have their "own" couch, and fell upon it with love as if it were a new member of the family.

I knew the dogs would miss it, because it is soft and very low to the ground and has been their little nest for many years. I figured the new one would be a fair trade, because while it's not quite so soft, and it's a little higher off the ground, it's bigger. It offers more room to spread out, and it's still not as high as a real bed. Toby has embraced this perspective, after he and Enrico gave it a vigorous field test during a long nap on Saturday.


Nelly, on the other hand, is having none of it. We've coaxed her up there a few times, and she just circles, pawing gingerly with her feet, like the Princess searching for any signs of a Pea. And then - finding a pea, or perhaps many of them, she hops right off. Last night Enrico and I both curled up there to read, with Toby, thinking perhaps we might encourage her up. Like when you encourage a recalcitrant child to eat by trying the strained yams yourself, saying "Mmmm, yummy!" But Nelly wouldn't even come in the room. She sat out in the darkened hallway, silently watching our warmly lit tableau from afar, her eyes glowing accusingly like some specter from an Edgar Allen Poe story.

Crazy damn dog.

The dork of the wolf pack

"I took a picture of Toby in his coat so I can post it on the Internet with my story about our storm experiences, but I realize you object out of some sense of masculine solidarity."

"It's not about his masculinity. It's about his canine dignity."

"Canine dignity?"

"Sure. If he were to meet a pack of wolves while wearing a green fluffy coat, what would they think of him?"

"Whether or not he was wearing a green fluffy coat, I'm pretty sure they'd conclude he was some kind of retarded* cousin. Which is pretty much accurate."

"They'd eat him, is what they'd do."

"Nah. I think they'd take him under their wing as a sort of lovable village idiot. The green coat would just seal the deal."

* I just want to point out that I realize the word "retarded" is offensive when applied to people, and it's not a term I would customarily use, but we ARE just talking about dogs here - my dogs, in fact, whom I love. So if you feel an urge to send me hate mail, let me respectfully suggest you need to lighten up.

The Saga

The Saga of the Storm

This story is probably familiar to anyone who lives here, who can rightly say, So what? Quit yer bitchin'. But, I'll record it for out-of-towners and posterity anyway, and any lessons that can be learned.

Day One: The Day of Great Wind
In retrospect, I probably should have given more credence to the weather reports, but you know how the media are about storm predictions. So dramatic! So overwrought! I knew we had plenty of emergency supplies, but I probably should have filled up the gas tank and battoned down the hatches a bit more. By midnight the wind was howling so loud that sleep was impossible. I heard the wind chimes clanging, clanging loudly, and then go silent - shredded to bits, as it turned out. By 1 am the power was out. I got up and looked out the windows with the dogs, watching the trees gyrate and sway. I went back to sleep knowing we'd wake up cold.

Day Two: The Day of Great Darkness
It was pitch dark as well as cold on Friday morning. We live on the slope of a valley, a big bowl where we can see for miles around - and we saw no lights, none. We heard on the radio that 175,000 people were without power in the city of Seattle, and another 700,000 around Puget Sound, but we didn't need the figures to realize we wouldn't have power by nightfall. Enrico works downtown where power was reportedly on, so he went to look for a bus. Most buses in our neighborhood run on electric trolly lines, but he found a crowded deisel. He called me to report that there appeared to be no electricity south of Jackson Street - basically the entire southern half of the city.

As I work from home, I had no office to go to, and no hope of escaping to a wireless coffee shop. Not without more gas in the car, and the radio reported two-hour lineups at functioning gas stations. With 14 hours of darkness ahead, I dedicated myself to preparing for the night - pulling out candles, batteries, blankets, the radios; cleaning up the kitchen before the hot water ran out; tidying up clutter that would just get in the way while fumbling in the dark; and boiling water on the camp stove to fill our thermoses. Periodically I'd call Enrico at work, and the sound of clacking keyboards and ringing phones made it seem like we were on two different planets. I'm on this primitive planet, with no hope of escape, and he has travelled through the stargate to the Land of the People of the Light.

Still, it was mild outside, probably in the 50s, and our evening of candlelight seemed like an adventure. Seattle City Light reported that of 65 main lines down, they'd managed to get half up on Friday, reducing the number of powerless from 175,000 to 55,000. They hoped to get the rest of the main lines up on Saturday, and the secondary lines on Sunday.

Day Three: The Day of Great Cold
Saturday we toured the neighborhood with the dogs - an amazing number of trees down including a big chunk of our maple tree which politely but narrowly avoided bringing down either our fence or our living room window. Not everyone was so lucky. Our neighborhood commercial district was back up and running, and we went out for lunch and dinner, hoping we might have power by evening.

But as the day wore on our hopes faded: City Light reported much slower progress than expected, as they encountered damage in the south end that was stunningly worse than anticipated. By the end of the day, only 10 more main lines were up instead of the remaining 30, and 36,000 people were without power - including us. The rural and suburban dwellers were in even worse shape, as PSE battled trees down over an immense, forested service area.

And worse yet, the temperature was dropping fast, predicted to go into the 20s at night. Not unheard of in Seattle, but rare, and cruel that it should hit right now. Would our pipes freeze? Was there anything we could do about it? Cities around the region opened emergency shelters.

Hardest of all was the fact that there was electricity all around us now. Where once we were in the majority, now we were surrounded by people with power, even right across the street. I didn't begrudge them their heat, but somehow when the entire valley was black, it was easier to be resigned. Now we passed the bustling commercial district, and houses with their Christmas lights blinking obliviously a mere eight blocks away. When the sun set, the cold suddenly became like a physical companion in our house, sucking the life energy from us. Our breath appeared in enormous, billowy clouds, and even the dogs were cold. We hunkered under blankets and read each other stories. We went to sleep with the dogs between us, tucked under a blanket for warmth.

Day Four: The Day of Great Breakdowns
Worse than going to bed in a 35-degree house is waking up in a 25-degree house. How do you get out of bed in that kind of cold? Enrico got up to let the dogs out and feed them, and I bleated weakly that he should check all the faucets to see if the pipes had frozen. Reassured that they hadn't, I went back to sleep.

Eventually I got up and killed some time by calling my family to complain piteously about my lot in life. We went out to breakfast at the only diner, surrounded by fellow refugees. Waiting for a table, I heard somebody say to his companions that "No, my power never did go out, go figure!" - and I was overcome with an urge to yell at him, GET OUT OF THIS RESTAURANT, today this place is only for people without heat or light! But I restrained myself.

We had an offer from friends for a place to stay, and after breakfast I came up with the brilliant idea of asking them if we could come over for a few hours with the dogs - have a shower, get some coffee, just be warm for a while. Toby had started to shiver and I was increasingly unwilling to just leave the dogs in the cold house. Of course they have fur, and they spend time in colder weather than this - but it's one thing to run around, it's another to just sit with no way to get your blood moving. Nelly's coat is thickly luxurious but Toby's is thin, and he's had shivering fits on camping trips warmer than this.

So Enrico called the friends, and they said they'd be glad to have us over - in about three hours' time. I started to cry. I had a picture in my head of heat, and a SHOWER, and changing out of the clothing that I'd been wearing for 72 hours straight because it was too fracking cold to disrobe. It seemed like a respite was right in my grasp, and to see it slip by even three hours caused my pluckishness to collapse like the downed trees that surrounded me on all sides.

Enrico really, really hates to see me cry. Thus my breakdown was immediately followed by his own, which took the form of focusing all of his considerable mental energy on finding a solution to all our troubles. Trained as an economist, I could see him trying to construct an equation in his head that would solve for all the variables - heat, food, unhappy wife, shivering dogs, collapsed tree...

We puttered around. We went for a long walk. We went to the friends' for showers. We left the dogs and went to a coffee shop to read the Sunday paper. I broke down and bought Toby a fleece coat - pastel green and fuzzy like a baby's feety pajamas, with little pink swirls. Enrico was a little apalled, in solidarity for the affront to Toby's manliness, but I didn't care. As the day wore on it was clear - once again - that we would not have power for a third night, fourth if you count the night of the storm itself. By now, the Christmas lights were getting on my last nerve. It was like electricity pornography, this obscene display of energy consumption.

City Light hoped to get the rest of the main feeders up by midnight, but then they would have to start on all the secondary lines and individual transformers. They predicted 18,000 still without power by Monday morning, with many people out at least until midnight Tuesday. Still the suburban and rural folks were worse off, an inconceivable quarter million of them without power with no end in sight, and people were starting to fall ill and even die from carbon monoxide poisoning - bringing grills inside, hooking generators up improperly.

Temperatures were once again dropping into the 20s, so we accepted an invitation from Zena and her husband to spend the night. They have 18-month-old twins, two cats, and a dog, so they are basically saints for taking us in. Nelly wants to beat up their dog, and both of our guys want very badly to eat the cats. But we made it work, and it was very much appreciated.

Day Five: The Day of Great Wandering and Great Joy
By now I was getting the hang of this. I took my agitated dogs home from Zena's and went to a couple of meetings. When I returned mid-day, there was an army of City Light crews on my street. Six bucket trucks, a dozen guys, replacing multiple power poles. When I got home Toby greeted me happily in his little green coat - in a palsy of shivering. I had planned to head back out to a coffee shop to get some work done, but clearly the dogs couldn't stay. They couldn't keep warm sitting still in a 35-degree house.

So I threw my plans out the window and threw the dogs in the car, and - as my grandparents used to say - we went bummin.' I bought some lunch and ate it parked by the lake, listening to NPR. I took some business calls. We ran errands. Periodically I'd swing by the house, and the City Light crews were still working away. The neighbors were out, and I met people I've never once talked to in 10 years. The crews were hoping to have us up by 10 pm, but making no promises. The damage was - par for the course - worse than expected. We went to the grocery store and bought cookies and fruit for the City Light guys. I didn't ask them when they'd be done; I just thanked them.

By late afternoon I was home, under the blankets with the dogs next to me. They were curled into the tightest little balls, nose to tail, under a blanket, and when I got up at sunset to light candles and boil water, they didn't move. They were just four glowing eyes under a mountain of blanket.

We had an offer of lodging from another friend for Monday night, and Enrico and I debated the pros and cons. The promise of having our home back within a few hours was too tantalizing, but of course it meant another cold, dark evening, and maybe the power wouldn't come up. Our friend's house would be warm and inviting and completely dog-friendly, but we'd be sleeping on the floor. After weighing the options, we decided to stick it out. Enrico walked the dogs and I went to the store for hot deli food and more candles. We had just set up our meal - dragging the dogs' beds into the dining room so Nelly and Toby could be nearby without lying on the frigid floor - when the lights went up. Just like that. I could have run outside and kissed the City Light crew. We watched a Jeeves and Wooster episode on DVD, and put the emergency supplies away. The furnace ran for three hours straight to heat the house back up. At first it seemed surreal to have the light, and so many options again; but soon it seemed surreal that we'd ever been without them.

The utility crews have been working 18-hour shifts since Thursday: 18 hours on, 6 hours off for sleep, often in their trucks or in substations to maximize sleep time. I'm sure they are getting massive overtime pay, but so what? They have to be exhausted and COLD. Their families are without them, a week before Christmas. A lot of them are probably without power too, and when I think about the extra effort it took us just to live our lives for the past four days, I wonder how the spouses and children of these electrical workers are managing. I want to find a way for us, the grateful residents of Puget Sound, to somehow throw them all a big thank-you party when this is done.

So today I emptied the fridge, and restocked the food, and answered email. I know that there are still thousands of people in the cold, with no idea when it will end. I know those crews have been joined by colleagues from around the country, but are still working 16 hour days. I wish them all the very, very best.

Next up: Some things I learned, about human nature, the electrical grid, neighborliness, emergency preparedness, why people used to sleep with their livestock, and the apparent but tragic extinction of the hot water bottle.