Whilst waiting out a torrential downpour in our tent last week, I ran out of animals / vegetables / minerals to draw for Hazel, and for some reason thought to draw West Virginia. Then we made a list of people from WV. Then Mikey drew Ohio and we listed people from there. We were desperate to keep her entertained, and she seems to enjoy memorizing lists lately.

“How about Clint… Clint is from West Virginia. Who else?”

“Hawvey.”

Hazel has met Clint & Kelly’s dog, Harvey, only three or four times ever. He’s a youngin’. She saw them two weeks ago and can deduce that since Clint is from West Virginia, his dog must be, too.

I feel like I’ve been saying this a lot lately, but HOW DID WE GET HERE. My BABY is DEDUCING INFORMATION. Terrifying.

Of course, we blew the whole thing twenty seconds later when we informed her that Paisley is, in fact, from Ohio.

Two West Virginia natives (one by way of Indiana) meet, adopt a buckeye dog and manufacture a Canadian child. Figure that one out, kid.

Today she examined photos clipped to a string on the wall and instead of naming the people, named their dogs. I died a little.

“Ea-wuh, Paisee, Hawvey, Cah-win.”

Earl, Paisley, Harvey, Carlin. We met my parents this afternoon to reclaim that buckeye mutt of ours. I missed her and Hazel missed her. I don’t know about Mikey, sometimes. Clint says “I’ve never known someone who had such loathing for their dog.”

I know my parents are really good dogsitters because Paisley is always depressed and won’t eat for two days when she comes back from their house. Thanks, parents. Welcome home, daggit.

Tonight I’ll dream while I’m in bed
When silly thoughts go through my head
About the bugs and alphabet
And when I wake tomorrow I’ll bet
That you and I will walk together again
I can tell that we are gonna be friends
I can tell that we are gonna be friends

- The White Stripes

I’m not a very cool person. I care more about how my kitchenware coordinates (or strategically doesn’t) than how my clothing coordinates (or strategically doesn’t). I preen the physical presentation of my books on a shelf but I haven’t had a proper haircut since 2006. I often could not tell you what I’m wearing without looking down. I unknowingly branded my child by putting her in a tshirt that says “lucky” across the chest because I thought it was just a tshirt that said “lucky” across the chest, and not a denim company. So if you see her in it, please understand that I’m not promoting a company. Just her good fortune. One time Mikey’s grandpa commented that Hazel looked like she was wearing a flour sack dress, and at the same time I was saying “I love those old dresses!”, Grandma was smacking him on the arm and hissing “DON’T say THAT!!” (<— Grandma is clearly more with the times than me.) I don’t know what is hip, or in style, and I’m pretty sure the words “______ is hot for (insert season here)” have never crossed my lips. But I’m pretty sure Hazel is cool. And hip. She picked out these shoes herself and people of all sorts keep stopping us to ask me where I got them, so I think they are cool. And for 2.99 at Gabe’s IN BROWN, so she is a little bit me, but also with the totally stylin’ ways (and awesome Italian skin) of her super cool aunts.

Sorry for the lack of adequate blogging this week. It has been total shit, punctuated by hitting a cat on the interstate driving home from my parents’ house last night. A black cat that I was sure was a little dog, until I made Mikey go back and turn around and check to see what sort of creature I had just killed while I freaked out. I killed someone’s pet on the way home from burying my dog. One time I stopped to move a turtle out of the road and as soon as I started driving again I hit a squirrel. Dear the universe, I get really disappointed when you f^#$ things up like that.

Goodbye, sweet Phoebe.

At least there was some humor in the burial and wake. While my brother and I took turns moving dirt around, we told lots of sick jokes and my mom was afraid the black humor would be too much for Mikey but then he started taking pictures with his phone so I think she figured it was okay. My dad gave him all kinds of pet-burial tips for someday when one of our pets dies.

“You have to fold the legs in, you see, because if they get stiff too quickly you’ll have to make your hole bigger. Or do something else. I had to jump on a goat once to get it to go in the hole.”

And then, as a family, we tried to remember where all of our dead animals are buried around the property, which I’m glad we did because my grandma asked me the next day and I didn’t forget anyone and then feel bad later.

Too late I remembered that Hazel’s placenta is still in my parents’ freezer and I thought we should’ve just thrown it in the hole since we had one dug, and I don’t want to wait five years before we remember to plant it with a tree. My mom seemed to think burying my placenta with my dog would be a little weird though.

And I woke up yesterday sore in my eyes from crying and in my belly from laughing, which I guess is a good combination if there is one.

The first time I heard the title track of this record, in 2008, I sat in the audience and cried – I was pregnant and didn’t yet know, but hormonal nonetheless – and thought “dammit Christopher, this song is so awesome and it’s going to be ruined the next time I have to bury a dog and I’ll never be able to listen to it again.”

But it’s not ruined. I haven’t listened to it yet, but it’s been in my head all week, and a huge comfort.

I get to go out tonight. Without Mikey, boo, but I get to go see friends’ bands play and hang out with a secret surprise person. A secret surprise for someone who I don’t think even reads this blog, but just in case.

I’m also totally caught up on my new year’s resolutions. Wait for it.

…about the official first day of summer.

(Why does a photo of my dog in the baby pool send this song spinning around in my head? Weird.)

You’re probably sick of my play-by-play snow updates, but here it is anyway: snow is now melting so quickly that the ditches along the road and hundreds of tiny streams are bubbling and splashing through the woods and between the boulders at a slight deafening roar… the sound of water running through the woods. Mmm, mmm. Water is now actually flowing through our gutters and not just the downspouts, because the former are no longer full of ice. We lost the last of the roof-ice at about 11:30 last night – a bunch from a dormer window onto the front porch roof created such a quake that everything on the opposite side of the house fell and bounced down the deck stairs, coming to a halt on the driveway. I thought a massive tree had fallen on the house. Mikey was sure that every gutter had been ripped from the eaves at once. Just ice! Ice that we no longer have to worry about serving as a gateway to death’s door every time we dart from the house and out of the danger-zone. I dare say that by this time next week we might actually be able to use our driveway. And this was hiding underneath all along:

This is the first day in Hazel’s walking-life that she has really gotten to play outside. We don’t have a clear yard, still, but it’s such a remote, quiet place that we spent an hour and a half walking up and down the gravel roads and roaming around in the driveway(path). She clearly has a fierce, instant love for the outdoors. She could barely contain her excitement over all of the things to touch, the mud, the sounds, the sticks, the rocks, the breeze in her hair. She cried and cried and cried when we came in the house and promptly fell fast asleep under a lightweight blanket with a spring breeze swirling through the screen and around the room – it’s a whole new life, really. How do children lose this love for nature? I hope she never does. Mikey’s mom got me this last year – it’s time to dive in!

People thought 17 floors was high up: our neighbors don’t have a backyard, they have a cliff.

Listening: nothing at all
(I am) Reading: The Poisonwood Bible
(Hazel is) Reading: The Shape of Me and Other Stuff
Working on: blanket; custom jewels; things things things

We got out! I ventured to the end of our road on Sunday afternoon, and when I arrived back home without worry of going into the ditch / pond / over a cliff, we loaded up and made a beeline for town. Now of course, the inevitable… there wasn’t really anything to do. Black Bear is closed on Sundays. We stopped to say hi to Angie and Luca and bought some groceries and some chains for our tires and went back home.

First order of business yesterday: ship out a week’s worth of Etsy orders and swaps and go home to see family and to get Paisley. She was at my parents’ house through the Christmas chaos, and the day I had planned to drive over and get her back was the first day we were stuck here. Now she is back, and on a hunger strike because she misses the farm. I guess that wasn’t just a city thing.

She did not object to a nice bath, though.

I must admit, I feel much safer out here when she is home. On Sunday night I had myself (and Mikey) convinced that I could hear a car engine idling on the road at 2:30 in the morning when he came to bed, and we lay in the dark for fifteen minutes periodically saying “did you hear that?”… “hear what?”… “probably nothing”… to each other. Then he fell asleep, and I was wide awake for two more hours wishing for a dog on guard.

I think when we are not living in someone else’s house anymore we need to get her a playmate – she is always so sad to be taken away from all the farm dogs, especially her precious little Earl. I wonder if Mikey would go for another dog sooner than another baby. Hmmm.

Listening: Gillian in my head
(I am) Reading: The Case for Make Believe
(Hazel is) Reading: Miss Rumphius – 37 cents on consignment!
Working on: blue & gold blanket; batch of mailers; batch of earrings; baby gift

Thanks to everyone who helped look and spread the word – she was a few miles away at someone’s house, just like Eden said. The woman found one of my mom’s flyers in her mailbox on her way to work and called immediatly. Whew. Crisis averted.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled chaos. I spent part of the morning in a frenzy in the kitchen to keep myself busy, and the rest of the morning in a frenzy in the kitchen in a “my dog is alive and well!!!” euphoria. I excavated the fridge and every single cabinet. I think Mikey must have taken out ten bags of garbage, and I have three bags of groceries to take over to Andrea. I threw away a packet of mexican rice seasoning that was KROGER brand (making it at least three and a half years old). I even scrubbed the storage baskets that held our rags and cleaning supplies – OCD much?

I feel like I have gotten a lot done, but why does our apartment still look like this?

Mostly empty closets.

No couch!

Hazel eating her lunch of cheese, crackers, and grape tomatoes – pretty much the only food in our kitchen at this point except for beer, doritos, cereal, and frozen blueberries – in her booster seat on the floor at the base of book-box-mountain (she can’t get close enough to book-box-mountain to pull it down on her head, don’t worry).

Goodbye dressers, hello total disorder.

I did think of something I will miss about living in this apartment building: the water pressure in the shower is awesome. I have peered into every corner of my brain and that is all I can come up with that I will miss about this apartment, except maybe sometimes the view. I especially like the view when it snows really hard and I can’t see five feet out my window and it’s like there’s no city out there at all.

I feel like this day should be over. It’s not even 2:00 yet.

Andrea told me to say that prayer to St. Anthony and it made me laugh. Small miracle. I don’t understand why anyone would willingly adopt an animal. It’s like having a kid, but a kid that is 2347893432% more likely to run away, get hit by a car, or get caught in a trap. It is agony.

Paisley’s new tag with our new phone number is waiting for me to pick it up tomorrow, and I will go get it with hope that I can actually put it on my dog when get home.

I have spent the whole day emailing her pictures and info to every possible shelter that I can think of, messaging everyone I know with a parent or grandparent who lives in the area, asking friends to pass the flyer around the schools at home, the hospital, the courthouse, the driver’s ed teacher knows to be on the lookout when he’s out with his students… Lindsay is even giving one to all of her gymnastics girls on Thursday evening. The message is being passed all around facebook. My parents have spent two days driving around, walking around, calling and visiting neighbors, flyering around town and passing them out to neighbors. My dad promised me he’d find her, which does not hold all the magic at age 26 that it once did, but still. There is a reward. People always come forward with dogs they’ve found for a reward – the woman at the animal shelter in Wetzel county told me so, after she jokingly asked to buy my couch because I was so frazzled that I initially sent her the wrong flyer. She said she’s sure once we get the word out Paisley will be found.

Aside from the very, very slim .02% chance that PAISLEY is looking for US, I have every reason to think she will be found. But none of them have been enough to make me feel at all better until I asked Jess to see what Eden thought about Paisley’s whereabouts. Eden is an animal-whisperer – she has amazing intution when it comes to her pets and can coax a chipmunk into her hands. Jess asked her where she thought Paisley might be.

she’s at a house near uncle mark and aunt anne’s. and god is protecting her. and she will come back.

I might actually sleep tonight after hearing that.

New Year’s Day, 2007

Paisley Jane, get your ass home. I HAVE to get stuff done tomorrow. Seriously.