Hodgepodge

This may be a bit of a hodgepodge tonight kind of an Irish stew with salt bread– I think that’s what they are advertising it neater for St. Patty’s day.  I’m going to go get some on Monday with my friend Christa.  Wow, what an amazing person she is.  Escaped a polygamous marriage with her three kids and was able to keep them healthy, mentally and emotionally.  She met the most fabulous guy a year later and married him a year after that.  She is brilliant and beautiful a redhead in all of the best ways imaginable about redheads.  Her husband, Al, is as beautiful as she is, but he is dark and has the worst joke telling skills on the planet.  He tells jokes that are been around for 100 years that are all the worse.  So everybody knows the punch line already, and none of us interrupt him or jump in with the punchline because he is having so much fun telling the joke that we can’t bear to ruin it for them.

So I get to have lunch with Krista on Monday and that’s thing number one.

Thing number two: I’ve known for some time that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.  I just didn’t associate it with animals.  I’m quite the dog person since both my daughters love dogs more than people– or at least love dogs more than they do some people.  Don’t get me wrong, I tend to agree with them.

I actually dated a guy for about a minute who didn’t understand my love affair with my schnauzer: “Trevor’s Silver Dollar”.  When I got out of a tragic second marriage, rebound, sadly, 11 months long,  I only took with me a great last name and the schnauzer.

One night, shortly after the divorce, I was awakened in the middle the night by the sound of snoring.  Keep in mind, that I was not sleeping with someone else, so the sound was a bit disconcerting, until I realized what was happening.

In the dim light from the nightlight in the bathroom, which was shining into my room and across my bed, I looked over and there was Dollar with his head on the pillow next to mine snoring!

I laughed so hard in gleeful appreciation that I nearly had to change the bed.  I loved that dog.  And that poor guy I dated knew it.  One time he said wistfully, “I wish you loved me the way you love that dog.”

I think that was the moment I realized our relationship was doomed.

There’s an old joke about wives and dogs that kind of puts this in perspective.  I hope I can tell this a little better than Krista’s husband Al.  It goes something like: if you want to see why man like dogs better than their wives, put them both in the trunk of your car, drive them around for an hour and then pop the trunk and see which one is glad to see you!

Dollar was my entertainment and my protector.  I have a younger brother who is 6 foot three and goes around the country doing Abraham Lincoln monologues.  He looks just like Lincoln must have, and he is as honest and sweet tempered as Abe was, but he loved to tease Dollar.

Dollar would be snuggled up on the couch next to me watching TV and Brian would pretend he was going to attack me.  Dollar would launch into protective mode, chase Brian all around the family room threatening to bite him.  Brian would only be safe when he finally climbed up on a chair or a desk putting himself out of reach, at which point Dollar would return proudly to my side to receive the hero’s reward of ear scratching.

Dollar is in heaven now, the result of an altercation with an automobile that turned out badly.  I mourned him for months, and, still think of him often.

During one season of questionable singleness, I declared I would marry the next man who bought me a silver miniature schnauzer.  Thank God nobody took me up on that offer.

What this is all leading up to, is the fact that the lovely Snowflake has now been MIA for exactly a week.  Tonight, someone asked me how I was doing because they said I looked ”troubled”.  I was surprised at how perceptive they were, I was troubled.  When I acknowledged that my heart was sad because my kitty had disappeared, they explained to me that it would be difficult for them to have the right kind of sympathy for me because they were allergic to cats.

First of all, I had to give them points for wanting to be able to offer me the right kind of sympathy, acknowledging they would not be able to and explaining why. 

On the other hand, I have a bit of a crush on my friend’s husband.  We were out to dinner and in the casual flow of conversation, he mentioned that he had never been much of a cat person until he met Lisa.  He went on to say that because Lisa had cats, and loved them, of course, he had to love them to because he loved Lisa.

I guess this is not such a hodgepodge after all, it’s more a recognition about how different we are and in spite of those differences find ways to connect and love each other– even if the other person can’t tell a joke.