Oh My Heart

This is our youngest whippet, Tindra, when she was ten weeks old. (Photo by her co-breeder, Laurie Erickson) Tindra is now six months old.

This is one of our oldest whippets, Mama Pajama, when she was around ten weeks old. She will be fifteen years old in June. Her brother, Fat Charlie, is our oldest whippet. He was born about an hour before Mama Pajama.

Mama Pajama and Tindra have a special relationship. Oh my heart.

A bit of background. Mama Pajama smiled and wagged her way through her youth. She jumped up into my arms and landed as light as a giggle. And if you were a Very Special Person in her world, she would jump into your arms, too.

Mama Pajama was fast. She was the number one Lure Coursing whippet in the country. She was one of the smallest whippets competing, but only in actual size. She had the biggest heart ever. And she told stories. She rarely barked or woowooed or rawred, but after she landed in your arms she would put a paw on each side of your neck and look you in the eye and tell you all sorts of stories. My husband Bill and my dear friend Linda heard the most. They were Exceptionally Special Persons.

On May 12, 2003 we had an appointment to put Mama Pajama to sleep. She had a horrid disease. A vasculitis, stemming from a wasp sting, which made her immune system go crazy and she attacked her own microscopic blood vessels. Her ears rotted off. She lost a lung. Her kidneys stopped working. She was dying. And on the morning of that awful appointment, while her hind legs were swollen to the point of splitting, and her heart rate was over 200, and she could barely raise her head, she looked at me and said, "Not yet."

I cancelled the appointment.

She got better. And better. Four years ago she went into a complete remission. We were able to stop the prednisone. Her life was different than it had been before the disease, but it was an okay life. She stayed to herself. She was afraid to be bumped by any of the other dogs. My fearless Mama Pajama who dusted Rhodesian Ridgebacks and Irish Wolfhounds in Best In Field runs now cowered and trembled and slunk away if her brother's tail brushed her when it wagged. Oh my heart.

Along comes Tindra. Puppy Tindra. Another soul who smiles and wags her way through life. "Hey, Great, Great Auntie Mama Pajama, Your Worship, Your Awesomeness," says Tindra. "Whatcha doing? Want to know what I'm doing? I'm going to dig a hole chase a bug capture a dandelion squeak the ever living daylights out of this squeaky toy, do you want to play?"

If any other dog or human or any living being asked Mama Pajama that question now, she would hunker down and wince a bit and say, "Careful there, I'm fragile."

When Tindra asks, Mama Pajama wags and says, "Oh maybe I would, if only for a minute. Yes, yes, I will play with you, my dear."

Oh. 

My. 

Heart.

hug your hounds

We've Broken the eBook iBook Barrier!

***
It is a bit magical, and I suppose frightening in a who-has-got-control-of-copyright sort of way, but I'll be daggone!

Mama Pajama Tells A Story is now available on Kindle and Nook. Who'd of ever thunk it? And it's selling!

So I'm sitting in my little computer/sewing room. (The room is newly spic and span and organized, I might add, due to the fact that my novel had been nudging me to work on it, so of course I spent days cleaning, instead). I log on to my Facebook page and spit my coffee on my screen. A friend from Norway wrote on my wall. That's not so unusual, but what she posted caused the coffee spewage. (I think that's not a word, but it should be.) She wrote:

OMG had to share, it had been a while since I checked to see if your book was on amazon in kindle form and it now is!!! Very excited, just downloaded it :) I have been wanting to read it for a while but trying to keep all my books in kindle version. Hug your whippets for me :)

And she included the link:

Mama Pajama Tells A Story: A Collection of Writings About Dogs and Their Servants [Kindle Edition]

I marched myself down in my Big Pink Thing to Bill's studio.

"Great, just blankety-blank great! Now my book is available on Kindle for $3.99."

"How did that happen?"

"Do I look like I know?"

"Guess you better call the publisher."

"Guess I better."

After hours on hold and being disconnected twice and speaking to two different departments, we ascertained that no, I hadn't signed the eBook clause, and yes, they could take it off Kindle right away. 

Hmmmm. 

I've been reading every book I've read for at least a year (has it been two?) on the free Kindle app on my iPhone. I'm reading more than ever, and no waiting for the book to arrive, and wasn't I being just a bit hypocritical and ...

"Well, no, don't take it down just yet. Let me think about it."

I went to the Kindle store link that my Norwegian friend had provided. I scrolled down the page to find:

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #241,692 Paid in Kindle Store

That was humbling. Meaning that not counting the free books, mine ranked way down at the bottom of the barrel. But, I had no where to go but up, right? So I posted it on my Facebook page. And I posted it on the FANS OF MAMA PAJAMA TELLS A STORY Facebook page. My Facebook friends who have Nooks said they felt left out. I did a little search on Barnes & Noble and there it was. So I put up that link. My kind and generous Facebook friends shared the links. This was getting exciting.

I just now checked on the Kindle store page. 

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,096 Paid in Kindle Store 

Holy moly!!! [She does a little giggly dance, a kind of Staying Alive John Travolta meets the Michelin Man and Pillsbury Doughboy's illegitimate love child. She's grateful no one except her dogs can see her. Even they look askance, except the youngest two who join in the fun.] 

Amazon's Sellers Ranking formula is strange and incomprehensible, but that was a heck of a jump! I think it translates to somewhere around $20 to $30 in royalties for me, and that's if there is any way to hold Amazon accountable for eSales.

But. I need an agent for my novel. I believe in the story I'm trying to tell. I'm not so good in believing in myself, but oh I do so believe in this story. I'm on the third revision. The third rewrite. I want to get it right, as right as I possibly can, before I search for an agent. I wish I had an MFA in creathve writing after my name. I don't. I can't tell an agent that I am on the Faculty at some prestigious writing college. I've never even submitted to the New Yorker, much less been published there.

And this day? It might mean nothing to a 'real writer'. It does mean that there are 14,096 Kindle books which are selling more than mine today. But it has given this little writer the courage to dare to call myself a writer again.

Thanks, my friends.

Hug yourselves for me.

Oh Mama Pajama

Mama Pajama in one of her few 'safe places' with puppy Jabber in May.

Mama Pajama is fourteen and a half, just about. She has been the Bravest Little Soul in the World. She was a phenomenal lure courser in her day. (In fact she was the #1 AKC whippet all systems except Bowen one year. Number one in dogs defeated, Best of Breeds, and Best in Fields.) She loved lure coursing. Usually she was one of the smallest dogs out there, but she would out turn, out follow, and out run the competition, much to their surprise.

And then she got sick. She got a disease which nearly killed her. (Neutrophilic vasculitis.) And when I thought it was time to put her down she said to me clear as a bell, "Not yet. Not yet." She could barely breathe, but she said, "Not yet." We cancelled the appointment and to everyone's astonishment, she got better. That was nine years ago and she's been in complete remission for four years.

Now we have a new problem. She's terrified. At first I was what terrified her. I am the tooth-scraper, the toenail-grinder. (I am also the dog-walker, and food giver, but that didn't get me anywhere.) Needless to say, nowadays Mama Pajama's teeth are gross and nails are long, because I can't stand to be her boogeyman.

The look that breaks my heart - her ever-present expression ... oh, Mama

Even with me being the Great Satan, Mama Pajama has had Happy Times. She is happy, happy, happy first thing in the morning. She bounces around me and wags and sparkles as we make our way from the bedroom through the half mile trek down the crazy stairs out the back door. She gives me silly nose pokes just like she used to on the way to the starting line. She dances and play-bows. And when she gets outside sometimes she even does her Spins of Joy. A tiny whirling dervish, channeling her half sister Willow, with a big grin and eyes afire.

Mama Pajama's Spins of Joy make me feel like I've won the Super Bazillion Lottery, only better. And if her brother, Sweet Old Dog Fat Charlie, is simultaneously running laps on his wobbly old legs with a big toothy grin directed my way and his breath raspy and loud through his worn out larynx ... then, my dear readers, life is grand.

Where she spends 99% of her days - on the daybed in Bill's study with Delia

She stopped going on walks this summer. It was too hot even at oh dark thirty and she said, "No." After breakfast - which she ate with relish - she would head up to the daybed in Bill's study. Only Delia would go in there, and only when Bill wasn't in the studio. Mostly she has the room to herself. I take her out to potty at lunch time, after which she runs back up to the study. Then she would happily come down for dinner, happily come down before bed, and happily tuck into her doorless crate in our bedroom for the night. (She does NOT like to share our bed.)

She used to come down for visitors, but that stopped. She used to sit on the porch with us, but that stopped. She used to love her walkies. (Back when she was too sick to walk, I carried her the whole way, because she still wanted to go.)

This week she has decided she is terrified of the kitchen and the dog room (where meals are served for goodness sake). She is so terrified that I must carry her through the kitchen, and then she won't come to the door when she's finished pottying. I have to put her in a crate while I prepare breakfast and dinner, or she slinks upstairs. She shakes in the crate. (But she does at least eat all her food.)

I'm not aware of anything that went wrong, and Bill can't recall any mishap while I was at work. Oh it is awful.

Well, Friday it was purely glorious out. I marched myself upstairs and carried my petrified dog down and said, "Mama Pajama we are going walkies." When I put her lead on (in the dog room so she was shaking and cowered) she smiled and wagged. PAY DIRT!!! We went with Fat Charlie and Sam I Am around the block, stopping to sniff at everything and to stand still in the sun, because we could. She had a good time, until we approached the house, when she got small and scared. But we had a good time for a bit. I let her slink back up to her safe place and called it a minor victory.

Yesterday, I went to help with a project at the Kennel Club. (Turned out they didn't need me, but...) Bill is out of town, and I was going to work at the hospital from three to seven-thirty so another nurse could be off to be in a wedding, and I really didn't want to crate the dogs all morning too. So, I loaded everyone up in the van and off we went.

Mama Pajama has the crate right behind my head, and she looked frightened and miserable, even after we passed the vet's office. But when we got to the Kennel Club property, and I got Mama Pajama and Fat Charlie out of the van, and she spied her beloved friend Dee, oh happy day!!! She wagged and she JUMPED UP ON DEE!!! She wagged some more and smiled out loud! BINGO BINGO BOOYAH!!!! Slot machines going crazy in my heart! And I thought, what would she do if she got to see her Linda again? Her Sara? Her Rhonda? Her nana Terrie? Oh, Mama.

Today is another gorgeous day. We will go for a walk, Miss Mama Pajama, Fat Charlie, sweet Sammy, and I. And I have some figuring to do. I have to figure out some short little visits for her with her Special People. I need to figure out some Fun Stuff for Mama.

My job is to give Mama Pajama a bit of joy every single day. It's only fair. That is only a fraction of what she's given me.

hug your hounds

Happy 14th Birthday Mama Pajama and Fat Charlie

Happy birthday to two wonderful whippets. Three wonderful whippets, as we celebrate Mama Pajama, Fat Charlie, and Sammy's mom Jessie who lives in Maryland.

Here are Fat Charlie and Mama Pajama on today's walk.

Mama Pajama in a Best in Field run dusting a ridgeback ;-)

Mama Pajama was the most amazing lure courser. Ah she loved it. She was the #1 AKC whippet in BOB wins, Best in Field wins, and number of dogs defeated. No campaign. We just went lure coursing when we didn't go showing or racing.

Mama Pajama was usually half the size of the competition, but at least to my eyes she had twice the heart

Fat Charlie (left) winning a feature race in CWA

Fat Charlie was also a brilliant lure courser, but his first love was racing. He would quietly hunker down in the starting box and then explode up the track running on sheer glee.

Puppy Fat Charlie

Puppy Mama Pajama

Steve Surfman photo of Mama P at the AKC Regionals. I love her grass-stained chin from grabbing the 'bunny' at the finish. And her ears, her darling wonderful ears.

Happy muddy Mama

Fat Charlie goes a'racing

Now

Then - 3 months old

Thank you dear friend Laurie Erickson for this treasured photo

hug your hounds

The Runs and Staple Guns

Preface: I am a pacifist. To my core. Maybe it's my Quaker name. I cannot watch a PG13 level violent movie - nightmares forever. I had to walk out of the theater when I tried to watch Slum Dog Millionaire. I am a nurturer by nature.

But...

The most darling Mama Pajama

For the first three years (2002 to 2005) when we moved to Paducah, my dogs had the runs. For the first three months the nine dogs and I were living in Bill's studio while the rehab on rest of the house was being completed and Bill was still in Maryland working. We didn't have a fence yet. And within three weeks all nine dogs had copious, constant, explosive, mucousy, foul smelling diarrhea.

You want to talk nightmare?

I didn't know a soul. Hadn't found a vet yet. Oh my God in heaven just the thought of those days gives me palpitations and the butt sweats.

At first I blamed the water, but store bought water made no difference. I cooked for all of the dogs back then, had been for years. Maybe southern chicken had so much more antibiotics that it screwed up their normal flora? The first vets I went to did fecals - normal. No parasites. We would do a round of antibiotics (amoxicillin and flagyl) and they would get better, only to have the diarrhea reappear when the antibiotics stopped. Queen Gracious had a bad neurological reaction to the flagyl, scaring the beejeesus out of me.

After five months poor Luciano had a terrible episode and started pooping frank blood. By then I had found the Paducah Kennel Club and members advised me to go to Ol' Poke 'n Stick. He asked if Bill and I had been sick. No. Did I ever have any problem with any of the dogs before I moved? Nope. Instead of only doing a fecal he looked at a rectal scraping (poor Looch) under his microscope. Was there a lot of rotting vegetation around the house? No, but, hmmm, well, the contractor said that when they removed the old roof it was over two inches thick: layer upon layer of rotten stuff that had been on the house since just after the Civil War. They of course threw it off the roof onto the ground. Our yard.

"Your dog has a bad clostridium infection," said my veterinary Angel, Ol' Poke 'n Stick. "I bet your whole yard is full of spores." Clostridium? As in the anaerobic bacteria which causes botulism, tetanus, and gangrene? Oh. My. God. The dogs were on amoxicillin for three years. (I have recently discovered that my home cooked diet did contribute - it was too low in fiber. High fiber helps the body keep the normal clostridia in check. And to this day my dogs don't tolerate chicken.)

Okay. That's "behind" us. Ancient history. Until two weeks ago when Mama Pajama got sick. Fine one minute, not so much the next. Vomiting. Lethargic. God-awful smelling uncontrollable squirts. I was sure she had some horrible cancer. I cried when I made her appointment. I cried while I sat in the waiting room. I cradled her in my arms when I told Ol' Poke 'n Stick, "She'll be fourteen on the 29th of this month. If this is something bad, we are not going to keep her alive for a miserable week, so that I can get used to the idea of losing her. I do not want her to be miserable, not for a minute."

Ol' Poke 'n Stick gave Mama a pat. He smelled her breath and looked at her gums. I'm thinking he's going to do blood work and abdominal x-rays and find some lethal tumor. He lifted her tail and sniffed. He gave her another pat and grabbed a Q-tip, lifted her tail again and lived up to his nickname. He disappeared out of the exam room, stinky Q-tip in hand.

I held my Mama Pajama in my arms and wept. A few minutes later Ol' Poke 'n Stick stuck his head back in the door. "Come look at this. Leave her here. She'll be okay for a minute. I want you to see this." I left a relieved, if slightly bewildered Mama Pajama in the exam room and walked to the microscope.

"Look," he said. (Ol' Poke 'n Stick overestimates me. I wouldn't know what I was looking at under a microscope unless the bugs wore name tags.) But, what I saw looked just like this:

"It's clostridium," he said. "She's going to be fine. We just need to give her some antibiotics, is all." I was so busy happy dancing all over that fact that Mama Pajama didn't have some horrible terminal illness, my brain too busy with the oh thank you God wanting to hug Ol' Poke 'n Stick, I picked up Mama Pajama and her prescription and tra la la'd to the van.

Halfway home it hit me: the roof! (This is where the "GUNS" part of the title of this post comes in.) The fudging, fluffing, goddamned roof!

Seems like our contractor thought we were crazy stupid Yankees who bought this old shell of a house and would never make it here and would be high-tailing it back to cooler climes before the paint dried. Because last fall we had to replace our front porch roof which had rotted off. It had been a new front porch roof just eight years ago. Oh and we had to replace every single window trim on every single window on the new additions. They had rotted off as well. Our original contractor wouldn't return my calls. The (reputable) contractor who did the repair work took photos. He just scratched his head in wonder. "This is so basic," he said. "I mean it's code, but it's just basic." Something about backwards flashing and no flashing and really dumb stuff.

Bill and I just scraped up the $8600 to do the repairs, grateful that I have a job, and chalked it up to life's experiences.

But remember when I was at the National, Bill had to cope with a major roof leak? The roof had leaked several times over the years and we were always having to replace shingles. I'm no builder, but this struck me as odd, what with the whole thing being brand new. We got a (reputable) roofer to take a look. He came down off his ladder with his eyes bugged out. "There's no vapor barrier on your roof," he said. "I mean my GOD! That's CODE! Why in the hell would anyone bother to put on a roof without a moisture barrier? I'm really sorry, but you need a new roof."

Once again all the shingles came down off the roof onto our yard with a fresh load of clostridium spores. The new roof was $9200. We talked to a lawyer in Lexington. We shouldn't have had to pay for the porch, the window trim or the new roof, but we have. The contractor did return Bill's call. I think his ears perked up when he heard Lexington lawyer.

I was willing to be quiet and see what happened. But now my dogs are sick, again. Sam I Am started straining and straining with nothing coming out and then before work on Saturday at 5:40 AM he vomited a gallon of undigested food. Poor thing had to go out a bazillion times and Saturday night Swede William started. Monday morning I took specimens in from each of them: clostridia galore.

I'm telling you right now, my dear friends, I cannot work twelve, thirteen, fourteen hour shifts and get up to let eight dogs out six times each during the night. My friend Heather (whose husband is a good lawyer) saw my van leaving the vet's and she called me to see if everything was okay. I fumed. I said the shitty contractor wouldn't return my calls. "Maybe you should go to his office and talk to him in person," suggested sweet little Heather. She had no idea of the seed she planted.

Patience the Pacifist had a thought. The Great Satan whispered in my ear and I listened and I listened hard.

"I could go to his office," I said. "I could buy one of those staple-y things they use to put the shingles on. I could go to his office and I could point the staple-y thing at his crotch. I could tell him I am a nurse. Being a nurse I would know that if I were to staple your testicles to your chair [oh dear readers I am relishing those words: staple. your. testicles.] that you will survive. Or, you and I could drive to your bank. You could get out $8600 for the porch and the window trim plus $9200 for the roof, and, oh let's get an even thousand for the vet bills I've incurred over the years which doesn't even come close."

Sweet little Heather sucked in some air on the other end of the phone. "Patience? Are you all right?"

Oh I hadn't felt this good in years! The money is awful and I am working too hard to be pissing it away because of some shoddy construction work, but that was just what it was and you go on with life. But the bastard's corner-cutting code violating crap is making my dogs sick. THAT WILL NOT DO.

So. I feel marvelous. The sumbitch pays us back and soon, or I dream of stapling his balls to his chair.

It's all just a little fantasy, don't worry. In reality, I will pray for the man. Anyone who makes a living ripping people off can't like himself much. Maybe since Bill and I have been MORE than decent about this he will restore my faith in human kind. It just surprised me that I was able to imagine a scene that I wouldn't have been able to watch on a movie!

But actually? I couldn't even get to the stapling part in my imagination: in my fantasy we just went to the bank and got the money he owed us and I thanked him very kindly.

Patience the Pacifist lives

hug your sweet hounds