The Grace of a Gazelle

I was really looking forward to writing this entry today. It was going to be filled with cute little puppy pictures and telling you all about the little 2 week old doxie puppy that I was now bottle-feeding.

Sharon (SPCA) sent me a text to ask if I wanted to take him and I enthusiastically said yes, but asked if I could wait a day to get him because we would be in out of town.

I hadn't heard from her by the time we got home, and then there was still nothing from her in the morning, so I sent a note asking if I was going to be picking him up today. She eventually answered that yes, and that she was just waiting to find out what time he would be dropped off and ready for pickup and would get back to me when she knew the time and place.

Later in the afternoon an e-mail arrived saying that "The vet tech that was taking the dog over the weekend decided to foster until placement through animal services, so the puppy will not be coming to us after all."

I guess he was just too cute. So no cute puppy stories. No cute puppy pictures. And especially no cute puppy at all.

This is probably best because I'm working at Logos tomorrow, going to Cousins Day the next 2 days (my mother would have LOVED to have a bottle feeding doxie--she loves them) and then reviewing two shows on the weekend, as well as having lunch with my college roommate (the good one), whom I have probably not seen in 50 years. Fitting bottle feeding in around all those activities was not impossible, but it would just be easier if I didn't have to.

But that left me with the question of what I was going to write about tonight, since all I did today was fold laundry, write letters, clean my desk, and watch 9 episodes of Dexter, as I try to get through all five seasons before 1/31 when they will be taken off OnDemand.

As I sat at the dinner table watching a glob of meatloaf roll gently down the front of my favorite sweatshirt and into Polly's mouth, leaving behind a little trail of grease, I decided I needed to address one of my biggest problems: I am a real klutz.

This shirt, for example, is a great sweatshirt which my friend Olivia gave me when I visited her in Salt Lake City. It sports the logo of the business she owned then, and I wear it pretty much all winter long, unless it's in the washer. Which it is almost every day because of spillage of juice or something off of my dinner plate, or a glop of yogurt, or melted butter from a warmed tortilla. The shirt is falling apart, probably mostly because of how often it has been washed. (I ordered a new one, without logo, from Amazon yesterday--and hope it is going to fit as well and be as comfortable. I have no doubt that it will be bounding meatloaf off of itself as well.)

Polly lives under my chair at meal time. Sometimes I share bits of my dinner with the dogs, but, like a dog under a toddler's high chair, Polly and Lizzie won't leave my side because they are pretty sure that sooner or later something will fall on the floor.

When Peggy and I were together, whether here or in Australia, she so often rolled her eyes at my klutziness. At least twice she ordered me out of small shops after I tripped and nearly knocked something over. "Wait outside," she would say sternly, pointing at the door.

One night at dinner in Australia she told me that she could tell me why I always spilled food down my front. It was, she said, because I needed to get closer to the plate. I've tried that here at home, but it seems that even having my chin ON the plate itself is no guarantee of no spillage. My chest just seems to be a food magnet. Perhaps the bountiful endowment that seems the blessing of the Scott women may have something to do with that.

I can't leave my office without knocking something over. Truly. It is about 8 steps from my desk to the door and even knowing that I am prone to knocking things over and taking precautions not to touch anything, I still do. Papers go flying, notebooks topple, the TV remote crashes to the ground and the batteries roll out. This has been going on for years -- and since I go in and out of my office dozens of times each day, you'd think I'd have devised a solution by now.

Walking from the family room to the bathroom, I trip over things on the floor, or the door of the dog crate, or one of the dogs or one of their toys. I knock things off of the dresser in the family room.

Now of course some of this could be solved by having pristeen surfaces, but I think we can all agree that's unlikely to happen.

So I will just, I guess, keep knocking and spilling my way through life and hoping that my final act won't be to knock myself out hitting the corner of a dresser while tripping over a dog when I was trying to get to a wipe to remove some food from my shirt.

Though, if you think about it, what a perfect way for my life to end!

I have let it be known that after my death, I want to be cremated. I'm betting that somewhere, someone is going to spill the ashes.