Hello, hello.

Some things have changed, some have remained the same.

First, at the request of Eena the elder, our custody arrangement has been significantly altered. For years -- nine years, I think -- during the school year, the Eenas have been with me only from noon Fridays through 8am Mondays, with an occasional weekend off, and during all school holidays and all but a couple of weekends during summer vacation.

Why I ever agreed to this arrangement may deserve some discussion but the temptation would be to point fingers and I will not point fingers at those I blamed. Simply put: I was stupid.

At the first realization that I had been stupid I asked, politely, and without even a hint of desperation, for a return to our original custody arrangement. This was six years ago. The Eenas' father's response was unkind: he called me an unfit mother and said no. I won't offer here his ridiculous explanation of this assessment but I will assert that he was speaking from his asshole rather than from his heart. Who's never done that?

So. Since September we, meaning I, have been enjoying a new custody arrangement. We split custody more or less evenly, two weeks at a time, thus reducing transitions and the stresses that transitions bring, and this all came to be because Elder Eena made some brilliant arguments for it.

At the moment I'm in the dead center of two weeks without Eenas sleeping under my roof. MrZ has been away, in Palm Desert/Palm Springs for a few days; his travels continue despite business being slow. Beanpole is away at college. Myrtle's at home with her family in East Lansing. Moose stops by now and then between shifts.

***

Cubby, Redeeming Past and Future Acts

1997 - September 28, 2010

Our Foster cat, Cubby, was hit and killed by a speeding car at 10:30 at night, just as I was drifting off to sleep. MrZ alerted me to the accident. I was dressed and by Cubby's lifeless side in less than five minutes. I examined him -- making sure, you know, making sure because there was so very little blood, only a telltale pool of urine and absolute, undeniable, pulseless stillness.

I scooped him up gently, sealed him in a large plastic bag, and placed him on a shelf in the freezer in my garage. Nobody wants that phone-call at 10:45 at night; nobody wants to say, "Can we put this off until morning?" The next day I arranged to return him to his original, ultimately allergic family. Offered the option, they decided to bury him at home alongside their collection of once-loved bones: Jazzy, Cubby's predecessor; Sonny, the Australian cattle dog; and a horse whose name I never could remember because I was always pre-occupied with judgments about oats and hay purchased on revolving credit or some such typically-me holier than thou bullshit.

The above photo was taken by Beanpole's mom, on Beanpole's bed, the night after her cancer diagnosis. Her wife was traveling for work and she did not want to be alone with her diagnosis. Cubby slept with her, in the room where he had never before been allowed, the entire night. This is the picture I sent to the eldest daughter of Cubby's original family -- the daughter who resented her mother for sending him to live with me.

We had struggled with him. He was a handsome bruiser of a cat, tormenting Ivan and Koko and Zenzi at every opportunity, often leaving nail sheaths and blood behind. He shredded our upholstery and defecated and urinated in younger Eena's closet.

But. He also did this one very good thing: he comforted Beanpole's mother through a very long, very dark night.

***

There were some notable dogs in my childhood: Fang, the Doberman across the street who had to be killed for biting a child; Laddy the Springer Spaniel who received the yelp-producing sting of my father's Daisy pellets for pissing holes in my father's weedless lawn; Jo-Hunny, the Cockapoo whose too often too-soft dogpiles I dodged while mowing, free of charge, his divorced mistress's crabgrass; Zippy, the Cocker (so fat she looked like a small, black ottoman) who growled and nipped if ever I got too close; Honey, the other, slimmer, tawny Cocker with goop-filled eyes who was too stupid to realize her tether was not attached to a post so she stayed in her own yard anyway, smelled so foul -- so unbelievably rotten, that it was impossible ever to drift off during sleep-overs at her home; Hobo, the three-legged Chihuahua next door who yapped incessantly when I arrived home from school unless I quieted him with peanut butter on crackers; Cleo, the always drooling Basset Hound, who was so endearingly ugly with her bloodshot eyes and full acre of sagging coat that she was actually worth luring (most effectively with a steak bone, but a bit of bologna sandwich would also do) the entire block back to her own yard before Dad could get his pellet gun down from the closet shelf just in case she showed signs of squatting. The yelping Springer Spaniel was upsetting. A yelping Cleo would have killed me on the spot, she was just that pathetic.

I think my dad liked dogs, actually, even though a dog was the reason he wore a plate in his mouth. He removed the plate from his mouth to brush it and the nicotine-stained porcelain right maxillary lateral incisor attached to it. At some point after his permanent teeth had come in, he was playing a rowdy game of tag with neighborhood kids and Rusty, an Irish Setter. Dad tripped on a section of uneven sidewalk. He face-planted: bloodied lip, missing tooth.

That trauma did not prevent Dad from fostering, for the Lions Club, Vicky, a Rhodesian Ridgeback, scheduled for service dog training. Unfortunately, Dad spoiled the shit out of Vicky -- turned her into 70 pounds of tableside-begging, bed-hogging lapdog. She flunked out of leader dog school. Mom wouldn't have her back; we had no fence, no room for a dog to run, and too many piss-holes already in our weedless, postage-stamp lawn.

I was probably sad. I'm sure I had forgiven her for scratching the cornea of my right eye -- it wasn't her fault that my face had gotten in the way of her bouncy-pouncy excitement. My injury was not the reason she was going away, I'm neurotically sure of that. Anyway, I was five or six or seven when I learned that getting attached to the dog you were so happy finally to have because everybody else had one is simply an unwise thing to do.

And here we are again.

Here I am, again.

A Fifty-pound Heap of Heartbreak

Zenzi is, we hope, mending. She's been on medication for a soft-tissue injury, most likely a pinched nerve, in her back.

It's an injury that is likely to recur throughout her life due to the imperfect development of her spine.

She was prescribed Prednisone for inflammation and Valium for sedation. The Prednisone seems to help. The Valium does not work at all, even at double the prescribed dose. In fact, Valium does to Zenzi what Xanax did to Zenzi: it renders her hyper-social and just a little too busy for her own bodily good.

"If this is true," one might ask, "then why is she resting so cooperatively in the above picture?"

I took her off the Valium. The truth is, she's pining.

The minute MrZ takes his luggage from the closet, she becomes sad. She follows him closely as he packs his bag and refuses to go near her crate when it's time to take him to the airport. Even if we take her with us to the airport, and she watches him disappear into the terminal building, the entire first day of his absence, and for two days after, she looks for him every time we go outdoors, much the same way she looked for Cubby after he was killed. She finds MrZ's scent and drags me along his winding, leaf-raking, mail-fetching paths. If his car is here, she sits by it, looking at me imploringly, refusing to come when called. She does not want to go for a walk and she does not want to go back into the house. She wants her daddy to come home.

On the fourth day of an absence, the searching stops and despondency sets in. Her appetite wanes. She doesn't want to go outdoors. She doesn't want to get into his car. She balks at the very idea of a walk any further than what is required to accomplish elimination.

Once upon a time, I thought I could turn myself into a dog person.

The truth is, I am a cat person who went to the trouble to learn some things about dogs in order that I might get along with them better. Learning too much put me at odds, at times, with some people who consider themselves to be dog people. When it comes to human-dog relationships, it's hard for me to ignore the dog's point of view. Respecting the dog's point of view has taken some work.

Cats, I get. Entirely. I feel a strong kinship with them. I have to talk myself out of assigning them inherent superiority.

Oh, come on! How long have I been walking across your piano keys in the middle of the night? It was never a secret!

We are all very well aware by now of my aloof and arrogant sides, not to mention my willingness to purr and knead for personal gain. My antics have never been for your amusement, but for my own exercise. Spelling it out like this proves, perfectly, that I don't know which side of the door I want to be on. Some people hate cats, after all, and no person really wants to be hated, does she?

I have no interest in coming when called, no inclination to sit on command, no desire to fetch, roll over, play dead, or least of all stay. Two measured meals a day is bullshit. I will eat when I'm hungry and sleep when I'm tired, and if there's a barrel of brandy strapped around my neck, damn straight I'll drink it rather than deliver it -- unless I really, really like you, in which case I will gladly share it, but I might ask you to shake my hand before I fill your glass.

Like it or not, this is who I am.

I wish I had fully realized all of this, and accepted it completely, and understood the ramifications of it, before I went looking for a canine companion, before I first saw and immediately felt sorry for Zenzi.

My vet likes to say that I've "bent over backwards for," "busted my ass over," "been to hell and back with," my dog. True or not, her assessment simply does not matter. It does not matter because Zenzi is not happy with the comings and goings of my people. Her only constant of any measure is me, and the more I realize this the more resentful I become of this feeling, that with her long list of idiosyncrasies and complications, I have no choice but to stick around and see things through.

I could have gone to Colorado last month.

I could be in sunny California today.

I could have agreed to a trip to Paris, or New York, or Virgin Gorda in two weeks.

I'm curled up on the couch, fighting the urge to sharpen my claws on its upholstery.

Dogs deserve a dog person, a real dog person rather than a mere wannabe -- a dog person that will prioritize providing the constancy of a pack.

***

Hello, hello. I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello.