“I guess you’ll simply have to satisfy yourself with the ‘ladies’ who live out there,” I replied, smiling sheepishly (that’s what we need: sheep!) and pointing out the window to the pasture, where several future filet mignons were munching away on a hay bale.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Not at all, sweetheart. I know how you feel about Miss January and Miss February. Not to mention Miss March. What a hottie, huh?”
“Knock it off,” he replied, shooting me the McLook, “or the girls are going on the shelves in the bedroom.” I immediately McStifled myself. Just the thought of sleeping anywhere near Miss March makes me McSick.
Speaking of sleeping, this is probably a good time to tell you that Nate’s Place has four nice-size bedrooms on the second floor. A master bedroom, a bedroom for each of the boys, and a guest room-slash-playroom for the little demons to destroy after they’re done doing their Joe Walsh routines in their own rooms.68
On the main floor, Hemingway has his Playboy Playmate-free den, and I’ve got my floral-wallpapered living room.69 There’s also a dining room, laundry room, full bath (complete with a gaping hole, courtesy of Miss Contractor/Decorator/Furniture Hostage Taker 2005), and, best of all, the eat-in kitchen that was the deal clincher in the whole Nate’s Place negotiation.
I can’t cook, but I love my kitchen.
It’s mustard yellow with touches of rich, dark red, and rooster accents everywhere. And I mean everywhere: on the window treatments, the area rugs under the sink and by the back door, even on the dinner plates I picked up at a tiny department store down here called Peebles. Hemingway calls it Pebbles, which actually feels appropriate, since living here in the sticks so often smacks of living in the Stone Age.
But I digress.
The floor in the kitchen is particularly fabulous. It’s pine painted in a checkerboard pattern. Sure, the kids would like to use it to actually play checkers, but until one of them finds pieces the circumference of a large pasta pot, that just ain’t gonna happen. I like it because it camouflages the filth.70
Of course the best part of the kitchen is the huge (but incomplete, courtesy once again of Miss Contractor/ Decorator/Furniture Hostage Taker 2005) island topped by a massive butcher block table smack in the center of it. Like I said, I can’t cook, so I’m unsure I’ll use it for serving dinner, but I can think of lots of other things to do on a surface that size. (Take that, Miss March.)
The only problem with our fabulous table is that it didn’t come with chairs. We tried stacking several of the three hundred unpacked boxes around it, but when they crumpled, tipped, and collapsed, we decided to hit an unfinished furniture store up in Winchester. There we picked up a few sample stools—or as Hemingway calls them, “stool samples”—and gave them a try. We eventually selected a style and bought four of them. But in the interim it was pretty funny barreling up and down the highway with our stool samples bouncing around the backseat and praying they wouldn’t make a mess of the upholstery. Oh, well, at least we had the good sense to leave the windows down. (I know, I know. I’m so immature. But Hemingway started it!)
Anyway, in the back-to-reality, “please, Susan, don’t miss any more medication” department, we also picked up a desk, matching chair, two filing cabinets, a media center, side table, and a pantry. As I mentioned, all of these pieces came unfinished, so Hemingway’s spent the last several days painting and staining them, and I fear the poor guy’s permanently high from the fumes. Sure, the furniture all looks great, but the “I’ve been tossing back the Jack Daniel’s” twinkle in his eye has me troubled.
In addition to Hemingway’s new furniture-staining hobby, which I swear must have a sniffing component, because I’ve never seen him so happy around the kids, my honey seems to have developed a mind-boggling obsession with bib overalls. If I’m not careful, and continue to steer him away from the men’s section at Tractor Supply,71 I’m going to wake up one morning and find myself married to Captain Kangaroo. He’s convinced he can carry everything he needs in a pair of those babies, and I worry he’ll do just that, and then collapse from the weight of it all among the cow patties in a distant pasture. Can you imagine the headlines?
MISSING: HUMAN EQUIPMENT SHED. REWARD FOR RETURN OF MAN LAST SEEN WEARING EVERYTHING IN HIS WORKSHOP.
Of course if the simple life doesn’t make me simply insane, putting the finishing touches on Nate’s Place should take me over the top.
Our now ex-contractor/decorator is holding several of our new pieces of furniture hostage at a mystery warehouse in Maryland (it’s gotten so ridiculous I expect at any moment to see a “recently released videotape of a blindfolded ottoman and cowering couch” on CNN), and, as you may recall, the wrong size refrigerator was ordered for our kitchen. It was beautiful, but it could have garaged a school bus. So it was removed and a replacement was ordered. In the interim we’ve been using a frat house-size fridge that’s got just enough room for ice cream, Coca-Cola, and beer. You know—the three basic food groups.
On Wednesday, after waiting patiently for several weeks, we received a phone call that our perfectly proportioned, brand-new refrigerator would arrive in the morning. Yippee! Even more room for beer. More room for ice cream and soda. Plus an “in-the-door” ice and ice-water dispenser! Finally, I thought, something pertaining to this crazy house is going smoothly.
Think again, Suzy, and break out those brochures for Betty Ford.
Thursday morning dawns, and before my coffee is finished brewing, the phone rings. Hemingway answers, and I hear him say, “Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huuuuh. So, can you tell me when you think you’ll be delivering? Uh huh. Thanks.” That expressive sentence completed, he hung up the phone, turned to me, and said, “They can’t find our fridge. It’s not in the warehouse. It’s lost. Or stolen. Or something. They’ll call back. You want a shot of Baileys for that?”
Furniture held hostage. Incomplete cabinetry. And the Case of the Missing KitchenAid. You can’t make this stuff up. Come visit and we’ll take you on the grand tour. See the light that’s not aligned! The half-assed island! The cavern where the cabinet should be!
We’re open to the public Tuesday through Sunday, 10-4. Closed Mondays for my therapy sessions.
Chapter Twelve
DOG DAZED
It is beyond thrilling to finally have someplace padded to plop my plump behind. Thanks to two terrific detectives who intervened on our behalf and made our ex-contractor /decorator an offer she couldn’t refuse—deliver the furniture to our house or get ready for a trip to the big house—our sofas, chairs, and ottoman have at last arrived. Sure, the Barn Door Red-stained pine stools around our kitchen island are nice, and the oak chairs in the dining room are fine for the fancy dinners we never host, but after a long, hard day of rolling out rugs, painting bookshelves, and hanging curtains, it’s a pleasure to collapse onto something other than an unpacked packing carton to watch TV.
All this bellyaching about a lack of sofas and chairs probably has you wondering what we sat on in New Jersey. It’s simple: other sofas and chairs. We just opted to sell them rather than pay to move them, since we knew we’d be buying replacements as soon as we arrived in Virginia. You can see how well that worked out for us.
In reality, it’s not like I have lots of time to sit and lollygag on my brand-new, super comfy, shabby chic-style, red and cream toile-covered couch. If I’m not unpacking boxes, I’m driving around with a muddy, sopping wet and stinking Jack Russell Terrier in my lap, wondering if commuting to New York had really been so bad. I’m beginning to think stay-at-home motherhood is madness, at least on those days when you make the mistake of rescuing stray dogs.
But I’m starting in the middle, so let me go back and explain.
Cuyler and I were on our way home from dropping Casey at school. This had been one of those weeks where the boys alternated sick days. Which means they needed me, and I needed to keep unpacking boxes. Guess who got what they needed? Right. Not me.
&
nbsp; Anyway, as we turned onto Rokeby Road, we saw two small balls of fur bounding toward us. They were quite a ways off and I’m quite nearsighted, so at first I couldn’t tell if they were cats or dogs or, God forbid, oversize rats, rabid raccoons, groundhogs, or foxes.72
But whatever or whomever they were, they were moving fast, and Cuy and I sat riveted as they rushed up. Soon it was clear that they were small dogs; one black and white, the other brown and white. I thought they were going to run straight into the car, so I stopped dead in the center of the street—the lack of traffic, like the lack of a local Starbucks, still stuns me—opened the door, and two tiny Jack Russell Terriers hopped right in.
As you can imagine, it was quite the scene. The dogs were soaking wet, covered in mud, and manic with exhaustion. They jumped from the front seat to the backseat and back again, flecks of mud-encrusted fur flying everywhere, like someone put uppers in their Puppy Chow. Cuy was giggling and asking if he could keep them. And all I could think was, Please, God, don’t let them pee in the car. After the initial shock of suddenly having two small dogs dashing around the Durango, I determined they must belong to someone on a neighboring farm, and Cuy and I took off to find their owners. How hard could it be, right?
So we pull into the first farm, and while I hop out to commence the search-and-return mission, Cuy stays behind with the two hyper hounds. I try the front door. Nothing. I try the back door. Nothing. I’m about to get back in the car when I have the brilliant idea to peek in the windows and look for a dog dish or leash, or some kind of clue to a canine existence. Bad move. These folks may not have dogs, but their kitchen would have made a pack of hogs happy. Too bad we hadn’t found a pair of pigs rather than pups running up the road.
Empty cans of tuna, crumpled boxes of macaroni and cheese, dried ice cream containers, yellowed newspapers, moldy dishtowels, half-eaten candy bars, and crushed plastic Dr Pepper bottles lined every inch of the scuffed linoleum. A week’s worth of crusted cereal bowls stacked one on top of the other sat surrounded by an assortment of grimy glasses and stained teaspoons on a table glistening with grease. The drawers were pulled out. The cabinets hung open. One chair was flopped over on the floor. I won’t even go into what was in the sink (suffice it to say it had something to do with boxer shorts and Brillo pads), and what little countertop space I spied, with its plethora of bread crumbs, browning banana skins, used tea bags, and spilled sugar packets, was a veritable Six Flags amusement park for ants.
And if all that wasn’t enough, there was the pièce de résistance: a huge pasta pot filled with sneakers, plopped smack in the middle of the mess. Yes, the old sneakers in a saucepan centerpiece trick. Quick, somebody call Martha Stewart! I’ve seen cleaner cardboard shacks in New York City, and to be honest, if I’d actually seen a dog’s dish it would have probably been doing double duty as a soup bowl. As filthy as the two Jacks were, I suspect they would have promptly requested political asylum to stay with us rather than return to this sty.
There was nobody home (or maybe they were buried under the rubble), so I went back to the car, prepared to drive over to the other house on the property. What I wasn’t prepared for was for the smaller, black and white Jack to jump right past me as soon as I opened the door. That little beast took off through the fence and into the pens where these folks keep their goats and lambs. You should have heard those poor animals wailing. It was awful, and I was frantic trying to get the dog to come to me.73
No matter how I called and cajoled, that terrier terrorist had other plans. It darted back and forth between the goat and lamb pen to a pasture of increasingly agitated cattle, while I ran around trying to find a gate that would open, or a fence I could climb. The majority of fencing had barbed wire across the top, so it would be tough on my cute new J.Crew khakis74 if I failed to clear it.
Finally I found a spot and hopped over, just in time to come face to face with six spotted brown cows careening toward me, with that puny pup pounding hot on their heels. For a moment I couldn’t move and couldn’t think of anything other than that I was about to be trampled to death by a bunch of dimwitted rib roasts so spineless they let themselves be bullied by a dog a housecat could take. This was no way for a former publishing exec to perish. Better to be killed in a scuffle over the last available pedicure appointment at the Avon Spa than in a tick-filled field in Hickville. I mean Upperville.
Terrified, I put my hands up over my face so I couldn’t see what was happening and prayed to be beamed somewhere safer, like the New York City subway. I heard their hooves. Felt the breeze on my legs as they blew by. And I screamed. Then Cuyler screamed. And that damn dog never even paused to take a breath.
After my near-death-by-bovine experience—on just one cup of coffee, I’d like to add—I’d really had enough, and while I hated to leave the dog to be someone else’s problem, I just couldn’t get it to come to me. So I got in the car with Cuy and the other pup, and drove to the neighboring house to inquire whether the dogs belonged to them.
No such luck.
After being informed by a ponytailed, tattooed, John Deere cap-clad gentleman right out of redneck casting that “this ain’t no Jack house, ma’am. Them’s sissy dogs,” I turned the car around to leave and saw at least thirty head of cattle running for their lives and wailing like they were being chased by a butcher. Of course it was just that manic Jack, barking and yipping and nipping. Suddenly it spotted the car and came running, and again I opened the door and the little brat leaped in.
Whew. Now we had both dogs and could go back to finding their owner, a task that no longer seemed so simple. The brown and white one (a male) was asleep on the seat next to Cuy, but the crazy, wet, muddy, black and white one (a female, big surprise) was in my lap, under my legs, licking my chin, and adding the now too-familiar smell of cow manure to the ambience of the Durango’s interior. Despite driving to several other farms off Rokeby Road, during which I daydreamed about clean, dry clothes, piping-hot coffee, and the corporate life I left behind, and calling a few more, we had no luck finding their owners.
Ah yes. Stay-at-home motherhood. It’s not just a job. It’s also a chance to play Ace Ventura, Pet Detective.
So that’s how Jack and Judy (I named them) came to stay with us, at least until the Jack Russell Rescue75 people showed up. Through the miracle of Invisible Fence collars and ID tags, they reunited the pups with their rightful and immensely relieved owners almost immediately.
And then the pressure was really on.
Upon the dogs’ departure my heartbroken and crying son Cuyler made me promise to find him a pooch. Pronto. So of course I promised, swore, crossed my heart and hoped to find a hound. This despite the fact that I definitely don’t need a dog right now.
Between the hundreds of packing boxes that seemed to reproduce like I’m running a fertility clinic for corrugated cardboard, and the nonstop activity that is the essence of turning a house into a home—moving furniture; moving furniture again; arranging crucial collectibles “just so,” vacuuming; dusting; running to the dump; hitting the hardware store for hooks, nails, and lightbulbs; trimming rug pads; and picking up groceries because ya gotta eat to stay fueled for the whole endeavor—I really don’t need to be scouring all manner of animal shelters in a desperate attempt to give my younger son his own Spot. Or Henry. Or whomever.
But a promise is a promise, and so, on top of everything else, we kicked our quest for a canine into high gear.
We fell in love with Teddy Bear when we saw her picture in an ad for the Middleburg Humane Foundation, but she’d been adopted by the time we called. Shane, an energetic Border collie who played a good game of catch, caught Cuy’s eye, but we were five minutes too late; another family had already begun the adoption process. We even spent about two hours with a wonderful, even-tempered Treeing Walker Coonhound named Sandy whom we would have loved to adopt, but doing so would have meant taking his current owner, too. The guy simply wasn’t ready to give the dog up, though I think his wife would have
happily handed over both of them.
We’d begun to think we’d never find the perfect pup when Hemingway stumbled upon the Web site for the Rappahannock Animal Welfare League. They had a darling little reddish-brown Viszla mix named Wheat available, and since he looked to be the perfect size for Cuy, we went to see him.
Between you and me, I should have known things were not going to proceed as planned as soon as we pulled up at the shelter. Even with the windows closed, we could hear what sounded like a million dogs barking at once. Hemingway got an appropriately hangdog look on his handsome face and said, “I always feel so bad in these places. I just wish we could take all the animals home.” Sensing time, and just the right level of enthusiasm, was of the essence, I cheerily replied, “But we already have lots of animals at home. Three hundred cows, two kids, Inky the cat, and Cuy’s hamster. All we need now is that one perfect dog.”
He was leaning in close to hear me over the clamor of what was probably more like two million dogs, and his eyes said he wasn’t quite sold on my spiel, so I came in for the kill. “Once we’ve got the whole farming thing down, and the kids are in the groove, then we can get another!”
“You’re right,” he said after a moment. “We’ll take it one at a time.”
And that’s just how we led both dogs to the car. One at a time.
First came Wheat, who was quickly renamed Pete, and then came Grundy, a big, sleek, German Shepherd mix originally named Scooby. Grundy/Scooby locked eyes with Hemingway as soon as we walked in, and was, in my dog-loving husband’s head, on his way home to Nate’s Place long before we’d even met Wheat. I mean Pete. So much for the one step at a time stuff.
At this point, the newest members of the McCorkindale family are getting comfortable. Too comfortable. They love running through the fields, splashing in the streams, and strutting, mud soaked, through the house while one of us tries frantically to towel them off. Grundy enjoys eating the cushions on the kitchen stools, hogging all the dog toys, and burying bones in the houseplants. This afternoon’s choice: a formerly lovely but now dead philodendron near the front door. Pete enjoys chasing the cattle, giving Grundy a good nip when he’s not looking, and napping.76
Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl Page 8