Puppalicious and Beyond

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  ***

  If he’d had both eyes, I’d have had to charge $10.

  ~~~

  Chapter Forty-five: Ewe’s not fat, ewe’s just fluffy.

  ——Original Message——

  From: Pamela Hutchins

  To: Eric Hutchins

  Subject: Petey pic

  He put the bear under his chin as a pillow himself

  Tired little bugger after playing outside

  __________________________________________________

  From: Eric R. Hutchins

  To: Pamela Hutchins

  Subject: Re: Petey pic

  He is SOOOOOOOOOO cute, and he looks really fat in the picture

  __________________________________________________

  ——Original Message——

  From: Pamela HutchinsTo: Eric R. Hutchins

  Subject: RE: Petey Pic

  Maybe he had a teeny tiny snack right before the picture

  Or maybe he’s retaining water

  __________________________________________________

  From: Eric R. Hutchins

  To: Pamela Hutchins

  Subject: Re: Petey pic

  You are BAAAAAAAAAAAAAD

  And that was funny

  __________________________________________________

  Above: Petey as Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl

  What does a one-eyed dog who looks like a zombie wear for Halloween? Why, a zombie pirate costume, of course. And how does he celebrate Halloween? He does a lap around the vet’s clinic decked out in his pirate garb, his legs outstretched in a joy-prance.

  While he was there, he got another stitch out, and did great. He still had no sight in the eye, though, and because there was muscle damage and the eye was turned wrong, only the white of his eye (which was red) had been visible since the accident. Only when we put the medicine under his eyelid could we see his big beautiful iris.

  His wandering eye looked Looney tunes, but with a swagger. Go, Petey.

  ~~~

  Chapter Forty-six: Gecko Love

  For the last year or three, a male gecko has used our master bedroom sliding glass door as his bug-hunting hang out. I adore him. Nothing defuses whatever ugly mood swing I’m experiencing faster than spying his little green body creeping on spongy toes across the glass. He only comes out at night, and only in late spring through early fall.

  In the past, he was always alone. Solo gecko. A bachelor. The gecko man about town. Until June of this year. I looked up one June evening and saw the blessed sight of Mr. Gecko with a Miss, who later became his Mrs. (or at least his baby mama). I snapped this blurry shot. Where did she come from? How did they meet? GeckoMatch.com? Were they betrothed from birth by gecko parents eager to ensure the perpetuation of their shared genetics and culture? Or did Mr. Gecko’s friends tire of his partying and set him up with a hot young thing to entice him to settle down? Whatever and however, it was gecko love.

  One month later, I discovered that a tiny red gecko baby with bulbous eye-orbs under translucent lids had found his way into our master bath. We watched him until he escaped without a whisper under our cabinets. Within two weeks, I saw another of the offspring on the glass with Mom and Pop. They were all too far apart to get a snap of them together, but Pop huffed out his chest/neck in obvious pride.

  How cool is gecko love?

  ~~~

  Chapter Forty-seven: Tiny Catholic

  In Amarillo where I grew up, you were religiously diverse if you were anything but Church of Christ. So, as someone who was on the outside, I thought I had sensitivity for religious diversity, I thought I got it. I was raised Methodist, chose Disciples of Christ, and now go to a Baptist church. Eric has had a similar Protestant journey.

  So let’s just get this out there: Petey is Catholic, y’all. We found out during Lent, when he came home on Ash Wednesday with the remnants of a cross on his forehead. He’d obviously tried to scrub it off, fearing our disapproval.

  We really should have picked up on it sooner, with his Boston background. And it’s going to be okay—it’s not like he’s Pentecostal, after all. He’s just a Catholic, and we’re not in Amarillo anymore. We’re in Houston, and there’s a heck of a lot of Catholics here. It’s just that most of them speak English as a second language. Come to think of it, though, English isn’t Petey’s first language, either.

  It will be fine. Really, it will.

  ~~~

  Chapter Forty-eight: At least we’ll always be able to find it.

  Petey the one-eyed Boston terrier went under the knife for the snip-snip. You know, neutering. Why, you may rightly ask, would we do this to our sweetie Petey?

  Well, when we picked him up from boarding at the super awesome Polka Dot Dogs two weeks before, they said, “Your little darlin’ is trying to become a father and has his one eye on that Chihuahua over there. And the cockapoo. Oh, and also the Maltese.”

  Pooooooor Petey. In his defense, he told me all three were super hot little bitches. And he loves Polka Dot Dogs. Instead of kennels, they let all the dogs of similar size and temperament play in open rooms together. He’d like us to take him along wherever we go, but if he can’t go with us, he prefers PDD.

  PDD, however, has a policy: At the age of seven months, little boy doggies no longer get to stay in open-room boarding if they can’t keep it to themselves. While I think anyone would be lucky to get the bonus of little Peteys along with the price of their boarding, I guess I can accept this.

  So, Petey visited his very intimate buddies at the vet’s office. After three months of eye treatments, they know and love him well. After neutering my poor baby, they know him even better. Before the procedure, they asked me if I’d like them to put a microchip in Petey, in case he ever gets lost. I said yes, but then I remembered that Eric and I had agreed to partner on all parenting decisions, and Petey was our newest child, after all.

  I called Eric. “Do we want Petey to have one of those Pet Finder microchip thingies?”

  Eric said, “Sounds like a good idea to me.”

  “Excellent, because I already told them yes,” I confessed. “They said they can put one in when they remove his you-know-whatsies.”

  Eric paused. “Wait a second. They remove his you-know-whatsies and put the chip in the space left behind?”

  “I didn’t ask, but that sounds likely, since this only came up because of his procedure.”

  “So he’ll have a tracker in his ball sack??”

  “I wouldn’t have put it quite like that, but, yeah, I guess that’s about right.”

  Another pause.

  “Well, I guess we’ll always be able to find it, then,” Eric said.

  Ew. I’m thinking this microchip may tell us a little more than we really wanted. Whatever happened to the right to privacy? What do we do when Petey starts dating? Or, God forbid, gets married? Wouldn’t it be enough of a challenge that he couldn’t father little Peteys without his anxious parents tracking his every move with his beloved? Not to mention the whole one-eye thing. This is a little more intrusive than, say, a GPS tracker in a car, which I’m not above installing in my kids’ vehicles if they deserve it. But a ball sack tracker? Could I do that to him?

  As I pondered the horrors, Eric broke into my reverie. “I’m kidding, Pamela. It’s a good idea. It’s fine. I’ll bet they don’t even put it there. I’ll bet they just use the occasion of anesthesia to tuck it in somewhere else.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  I exhaled. What a relief, because I was pretty sure that wherever they were going to put the microchip, it was a done deal by now.

  Later that same day, I picked up our Petester. Oh, what a pitiful sight he was, head hanging, eyes downcast. He seemed awfully low, even for a dog that had lost his manhood. I paid and whisked him to the car, whispering supportive and encouraging words in his ear about his bright future and the long line of female dogs who didn’t give a rat’s ear abou
t puppies, citing to our own Layla and Cowboy as examples of devoted and puppyless partners.

  Nothing worked. I just couldn’t cheer him up. We were almost home when a cold dread seeped over me. I pulled to the side of the road and put the car in park. I knew even before I carefully searched his sixteen-pound body for a microchip incision what I would find—nothing.

  The only point of entry? Yes, you guessed it: the poochy pouch. Little tears of guilt welled up in the corners of my eyes. I stroked him and begged for his understanding and forgiveness. This appeared to mollify him a bit, and we headed for home.

  As I was making dinner that night, Susanne came in. “I guess that surgery didn’t work. Petey’s humping his stuffed German shepherd.”

  A few minutes later, Clark swung by. “What a stud, Mom. Petey’s giving it to that kangaroo. Didn’t he just get his balls chopped off today?”

  When he walked through the door, Eric exclaimed, “Wow, Petey, you aren’t letting a little pain stop you, are you?”

  I could only imagine. As I pondered his actions, even I had to admit it. Our Petey is a total slut. Maybe the vet put the tracker exactly where we need it to be.

  ~~~

  Chapter Forty-nine: Angels

  Excerpt from the novel Going for Kona27:

  Here on the island of Kona, I followed the training plan that Adrian had laid out for us nine months before, when he’d qualified for the Hawaii Ironman. I stayed in the Kona Awesome Condo he had rented because he got such a kick out of the name. I ate the egg-white omelet at Lava Java and passed on the coffee. No caffeine within forty-eight hours of race time, per previous instructions by Adrian. I attended all the events and expos and dinners he would have wanted to go to.

  Of course, I expected that any minute now, somehow he would join me, that I would feel him, that he would be here, but he remained stubbornly absent. I coasted on autopilot, programmed to my course, and I did not give in to the pain. I felt nothing, not even scared, betrayed, or tired anymore.

  Wandering through the town, I saw fliers announcing the memorial for Adrian taped up everywhere. This service sounded like a bigger deal than I had imagined it to be. I hated the thought of attending, but Adrian would have loved it. I would go for him, and behave graciously. As graciously as I could, anyway.

  I walked down to St. Peter’s. Adrian and I had planned to visit it together on the night before the race. The little blue clapboard church was right on Ali’i Drive, near the start/finish of the triathlon. It stood on the beach, surrounded by a lei of pink bougainvillea bushes. The setting sun cast light that filtered through the etched glass window above the doorway to the church onto the aisle between the pews in a rainbow of color.

  I took my place inside.

  The priest spoke to the gathered athletes. “Tomorrow you may need an angel. You will put your body and mind through an incredible test. Believe in your angel, and he or she will come to you when you need it most.”

  I would look for mine tomorrow, that was for sure. If I couldn’t find Adrian at Kona, I didn’t believe I could find him anywhere.

  An older woman sitting under the third station of the cross caught my attention. “Of course,” I thought. I was looking at my triathlon idol, Sister Madonna Buder, the seventy-nine-year-old Roman Catholic nun famous for completing over 325 triathlons, thirty-six of them full-length Ironmans. She didn’t even start triathlon until she was fifty-two. I remembered a quote Adrian had attributed to her: “I train religiously.” Now she was kneeling at the altar in St. Peter’s with me.

  And tomorrow was the big day. I prayed and prayed and prayed.

  When the service was over, I walked out of the church and down toward the starting line, the site of Adrian’s memorial. Hundreds of people were gathered there. Hundreds. I fought back the waves of emotion. Stay strong. Not yet.

  A loud voice snapped me out of my fog. James Harvey, an Austin triathlete Adrian had known for many more years than he had known me, spoke through a bullhorn. “Thanks for coming, everyone. We are here to honor our friend, writer and fellow triathlete, Adrian Hanson. You all know Adrian. His words painted the picture of our sport. There’s his beautiful wife, Charlotte, now.”

  James waved to me and hundreds of heads turned. I waved back, smiling gamely but glad for the growing darkness.

  “If I passed the microphone around, we could spend all night here telling stories about Adrian, but Adrian would not approve of us missing our beauty sleep before the race.” The crowd tittered. “Instead, volunteers are passing around Bic lighters and Sharpies. Here’s what we want you to do. Take the Sharpie and write a message to Adrian some place that won’t conflict with body marking tomorrow, but make it someplace that will show. Write his name, or ‘in memory of Adrian,’ or some such. Whatever you want. Then, when we are all done with the Sharpies, we’ll use our Bics.”

  The crowd hummed as people wrote on their arms and legs. I finally cried. No one had told me this was the plan. It was perfect. I wrote “For Adrian” on the sides of both my shins.

  “You guys, please spread the word to everybody that couldn’t be here tonight about our special body marking. I’d love to see Adrian’s name plastered on every leg in Kona tomorrow, OK?”

  The crowd cheered. I felt vulnerable in this teeming mass of people that had gathered to honor my husband. They engulfed me, and I lost my balance in a rush of vertigo. I wanted to reach out and hold onto the person next to me to steady myself. Better yet, I wanted to turn to find Adrian beside me and grab his arm.

  “Time for lighters, everyone. So, light ‘em up, hold ‘em high, and let’s observe one minute of silence while we remember our lost friend, Adrian Hanson, who we will forever miss.”

  The snapping sound of Bics lighting up resounded in hundreds of small clicks around me. I lit mine and held it aloft. The man standing next to me watched me as I swayed.

  He leaned toward me and whispered, “Charlotte?”

  I cocked my head in answer and nodded.

  The stranger reached down and held my hand.

  I struggled not to sob, to stay upright. Then the woman next to me put her arm around my waist. The minute stretched on a very long time.

  “Amen,” James said.

  “Amen,” the crowd answered.

  James wrapped it up. “Thank you all for being here. Please drop your lighters and Sharpies in the boxes on the pier as you leave. Don’t forget to spread the word about the extra body marking. And hold up—I almost forgot, Charlotte is here to race, keeping up the family tradition for her husband. Y’all encourage her out there tomorrow. Go get some rest, see you here tomorrow bright and early.”

  I turned to thank my angels, but they were gone.

  27 You remember this one: the sequel to nothing yet.

  ~~~

  Chapter Fifty: Tiny Muslim

  Stop the presses!

  Not long ago, I confessed that Petey had converted to Catholicism during Lent. But what a difference a week made. I walked in a week later and found him in this pose. There was no yoga DVD playing to explain his body position, no reason for his devout prostration other than, you guessed it: a change of faith. Petey is now a Muslim, and below is a photograph of him praying, facing Mecca.

  He needs to work on his form, methinks, but he’s only an eight-month old dog. Even so, I have to wonder if his religious experimentation is genuine, or if Petey’s setting me up for a discrimination charge. Maybe he’s caught the lawyer ads when he watches Oprah with Susanne. I have come down on him pretty hard for his refusal to potty train, after all, and he’s sharp enough to have noticed the other dogs aren’t catching hell.

  I’m rethinking everything now. What could he sue me for? Discriminating against him for his disability? He could have stuck his head in Cowboy’s mouth intentionally. His bi-racial heritage, as evidenced by his half-black and half-white coat? Might be nothing more than a stencil, masking tape, and black hair dye on a white dog. And now? The Tiny Protestant became the Tiny Catholic wh
o has become the Tiny Muslim. Next week I’ll probably find him in dreadlocks with a yarmulke perched on his head, meditating and chanting mantras.

  Or maybe I’m just paranoid. Oy vey.

  ~~~

  Chapter Fifty-one: Cold Nose, Warm Feet

  You know that age-old saying, “rednecking can lead to redneckedness?” Last weekend, it didn’t hold any water. We spent the weekend rednecking, and there wasn’t a damn bit of redneckedness.

  Here’s what happened. Eric and I hoofed it to Nowheresville for another idyllic weekend camped out in the Quacker. For once, I had no poo stories to bring home. Nor did I bring home any naked stories. Not that I usually share any naked stories; I’m simply confirming there were none to bring home.

  And the reason for no naked stories? 1) Gas and 2) Petey, the one-eyed light of our lives. No, not that kind of gas. Although there was some of that, there is no causal connection between that “gas” and the “no naked” issues. Instead, I’m talking about propane gas. Eric, AKA Bubba-mon in Nowheresville, ran out of propane in our two propane tanks. Guess what kind of heater we have? P-r-o-p-a-n-e, yes.