Coded Exchanges

We didn’t have much time to sober up. We were expected at a fundraiser for our niece’s jazz band in Lakota. Sober up may be too strong a word. I didn’t have much time to process the whether somewhere inside of me, I had committed to a dog. We arrived home, fed the kids dinner and were back out the door to learn to swing dance from some Stepping Out studio. Men dressed in vest and ties, women in dresses that twirled.

The jazz was extraordinary, our steps were not. Right, left, rock back, right, left rock back. Even as I write, I had to recreate in my body and not try to remember it from a brain already soggy from wine and overthinking this dog thing. It is true about muscle memory and since that is the case, I will work more on building my muscle strength than my brain aptitude, so that I can retain more when I get old (or already am)

I threw myself around the dance floor, Mark at times throwing me too. I fell for the music and the triple jive – one two three, one two three. By 11 pm, we were home and in bed and though my feet ached, my heart ached more for a little puppy whose life was seemingly out of, yet in our hands.

We (I) had promised to take the kids skiing on Sunday morning, so there was little time for me to review the events of the day before, though Mark seemed to have ample time to sit at the computer and research puppy mills, breeders, Petland, etc. Over coffee we offered to each other coded exchanges about such topics, disguising our phrasing enough so that the kids would not catch on. “Oh look, the Westminster dog show is coming up in a few weekends.” “I wonder if all those dogs are AKC registered.” Or “I wonder how much time they take to train those dogs.” “I wonder if they show Cavalier King Charles, you know, like Bandit, (the sister’s dog).” Davis was deep into his cartoons and Kaitlyn was enthralled by the colered comics. Shannon was still asleep. None of them registered any interest in our conversation.

I was grateful for the ski day, for many reasons. The first just feeling blessed enough to enjoy this sport, the snow and the sun. Second, we were together as a family, and a few years ago, I could not envision this group, in particular the girls which I always viewed as wanting to watch reruns of Friends more so than go outside. But we have all grown, and despite Shannon’s desire to live somewhere warm, she manages to enjoy the skiing as much as the rest of us and, honestly, her technique is better than mine. I am always fighting off the bow legs, which don’t work with parallel skiing.

For four hours, I spent my energy concentrating on the moving around the moguls and not moping about a puppy that may or may not be joining our family. We drove home that afternoon past the exit we would be required to take if we were going to stop by Petland. Mark kept giving me the “what do you think glances” for the five miles preceeding the exit. It had not yet been 24 hours, ok, I was one hour shy of it, but I shook him off and told him to keep going. The kids were all fast asleep in the car and while I know they would wake for this, I could not steel myself for that decision.

When we arrived home, I showered. Mark went online doing more research. “What if I call Petland and he is still there?” “Well, then, we can ask all sorts of questions,” was my reply. So Mark called. Not having been a dog owner, I didn’t know what kinds of questions to ask. Having not been a fan of some dogs in my life, mainly due to owner neglect, I at least knew what kind of owner I wanted to be.

Mark quickly came into my office, “he’s still there,” then began whispering all sorts of information into my ear, none of which were sweet nothings. He was offering up the name of a breeder from Williamsburg, Indiana, which we could not find any references for. There was also mention of the CKC vs. the AKC, the CKC being be a rating system not devised by the Westminister dog show committee. In an unscrupulous world we live in, it is easy to be suspect of anything that sounds out of the ordinary.

We were having company in an hour, and I was through with this conversation. Though each time, I closed my eyes, I could still see the future Enzo and feel his fur brushing my cheeks.