SUNDAY GRATITUDE EXTRAVAGANZA: DOG DAYS OF SUMMER EDITION
| Five Things… [About Dogs]| The "Anyone Anywhere" Meeting Update | Book Review: "The Dog Stars" | From the TFLMS Archive: "The Moose Edition" | Much, Much More |
I’m grateful for an absolutely gorgeous morning. I’m grateful for slowly figuring things out. I’m grateful for pretty excellent coffee. I’m grateful for the newspaper thumping outside the door. I’m grateful to be sober today.
Dog Days of Summer Edition
Of course, it comes to this. It does every summer. The really hot part where it’s very easy for things to just feel burdensome. A trek to the coffee shop, which usually inspires maybe a little too much joy, now provokes a bit of thinking, “do I really want to walk over there and then get hot coffee?” I overcame my heat-induced reluctance the other day and I was walking back, I saw a black something-doodle, at the tail-end of a walk, doing what any self-respecting dog would do on a hot, sticky day like that: He was lolling on his back, tongue out, looking slightly dead-ish.1
If only I had taken a picture, that would exactly sum up the “Dog Days of Summer?”
I’m so sorry, that’s not a correct answer. The Dog Days of Summer is not simply a pejorative reference to the hot, lazy part of summer, where dogs are uninterested even in the dog-basics: food-stealing, food-”borrowing,” food surveillance, food detection, nasal-genital contact, and even food consumption. No, it’s a celebration of dogs and astronomy!
The “Dog Days of Summer” were called that because of the horrible hot and ugly weather that followed the rising of Sirius, the “Dog Star.” According to the all-great and powerful Wikipedia:
The Romans continued to blame Sirius for the heat of the season and attendant lethargy and diseases. In his Georgics, Virgil notes vintners' efforts to protect their work during the time "when the Dog-star cleaves the thirsty Ground.” Seneca's Oedipus complains of "the scorching dog-star's fires". Pliny's Natural History notes an increase in attacks by dogs during July and August, and advises feeding them chicken manure to curb the tendency. In the early 20th century, historians still noted the "discouraging heat" and "oppression" of the dog days of the Roman summer.
Am I suggesting that we look at poor, shaggy dogs on these beastly hot days as perpetrators rather than victims? I am not. I view this time not as denigration of dogs, but as a celebration of them.2
I’ve had dogs since about the third-grade.3 My first dog was a bribe. We had moved around a lot and we were leaving Florida for Iowa City. We would be living in a house, not an apartment, so a dog became a possibility. I’m guessing it was May or June of 1970 when “Jente,” came to live with us.4 She was an incredibly energetic Brittany Spaniel and I’m not sure the stake in the backyard where we would “hook her up” and let her run in circles was the best way to raise a dog. She died during my Junior year of college and I came home to take the last trip to the vet with her. 5
Once my kids came along, there was a succession of dogs: Rascal, Kayla, Buddy, Ranger and then, Moose. I know you’re not supposed to have favorites, but Kayla was my favorite. First, she was beautiful:
Second, she was smart and very mischievous. After my divorce, I lived with her and her running-mate Buddy:
That was a lot of dog and I spent a lot of time at the dog park near my house on 13th street, n.w. Also drinking at the bars on P Street between 14th and 15th. Buddy died of cancer in 2013, even though he was younger. Kayla developed the same form of cancer towards the end of 2014, so I knew the drill.
Kayla and I had spent a lot of time together and I am a person who definitely talks to my dogs.6 I feel like she had a pretty solid understanding of my alcoholism. She was there when I’d show up between drinking sessions to feed her and walk her. She was there when I stumbled home at night and she’d sleep on the floor beside the sofa while I had Law & Order on trying to turn off the Hamster Wheel long enough so I could pass out and forget the nonsense that was my life.
Two really bad things happened in March of 2015. First, my girlfriend of about 18 months discovered that I wasn’t as sober as she thought I was. She thought this because that’s what I told her. The truth: I was drinking just about every day, most of the time, a scant few blocks from her house. At the same time as that unraveled, Kayla’s time was ticking down. I had let Buddy go too long and his last weekend was pretty miserable. I knew what was going to happen to Kayla and knew the only thing I could do was to make it as comfortable as I could for her. She was almost sixteen years old by this point.
About a week after the break-up, and after a consult with the vet, it was time. I left the office at lunchtime and went to an upscale pizza place across 6th Street and drank and watched ESPN for a couple of hours until I thought I was ready. I went home, took Kayla out for a surprise mid-day walk. It was a pretty, still-chilly March day and we took a leisurely spin around Logan Circle and then we went to the vet. I laid on the floor with her, her paw on my back, until she was gone. I walked home with her leash and collar, tears streaming down my face the whole three blocks. And then I drank.
There was no one to thump their tail when I so much as stirred in the morning. There were no more bright shiny eyes, when I got home. There was no one producing that soft doggy snoring white noise that helped ease me to sleep. I joked that my life was like a country song:
I lost my dog and my girlfriend in about a week, not sure who I miss more.
I mostly drank after that. The summer of 2015 was a real blur. A bad, lonely, desperate time. At some point in August (during the dog days of that summer), my children advised me that they had determined a new dog was necessary and my son would be home for the weekend to assist in the selection and acquisition of said-dog. We toured the shelters of DC and found some promising candidates, then we met a gigantic, ungainly, drooling behemoth of a dog. He had been found running wild in Alabama, was living his last days in a high-kill shelter until these folks intervened and brought the completely inappropriately named “Bocce“ to DC.
Bocce was a bloodhound, rideable by a toddler and weighing in at 105 lbs. He was old and had some janky teeth. My son and I had this conversation:
Son: He’s a really great dog. Me: He’s really big. Son: But he’s a really great dog, look how sweet he is! Me: He’s a really big dog. Son: Ok, he’s old and he’s huge and I think we both know there is only one person dumb enough to be willing to adopt him.
That’s how Moose came to live with me:
Moose’s arrival “coincided” with another real effort at sobriety. I went back to an Intensive Outpatient Program and began taking Antabuse. I began working a “program” and I actually managed to put about 90 days of sobriety together. It didn’t last, but that wasn’t Moose’s fault. Moose died in early 2018 unexpectedly, while he was being boarded at the vet. I was so far gone by then, I really don’t remember very much, other than collecting the box with his ashes. I was drinking hard and things were so dark, I couldn’t really see much beyond the end of the bar.
Certain children of mine sometimes send me pictures of really cute older dogs with texts like, “he’s looking for his forever home, dad!” I make the poop quotient joke, but there’s another truth, I’m afraid the life I’ve put together isn’t quite ready to add a dog to the mix. I’m sober and every day is an adventure, often filled with joy and love, but it still feels like a pretty rickety treehouse that I’ve built. I know it holds at least one, but beyond that, I’m not quite sure yet.
I often repeat that line about recovery being about finding the path back to the person I was, the person I was meant to be. I know that person always had dogs, in fact, that person’s nickname is kind of a canine reference and I’ve come to believe, pretty strongly, that person was probably a dog in the life prior.7 I guess what I realize is the path back to that person is filled with change. When you re-write the narrative of your life, when everything changes, well, everything changes. The pieces don’t all magically come together the way they were before. Piecing the old egg-shell back together again is just not possible.
In a funny way, the Dog Days and Dog Star thing maybe actually come together in a way that illustrates the fundamental importance of dogs. The rising of the Dog Star was attendant to a really shitty time of year, historically. It would be wrong to think the weather is caused by the appearance of the doggie star in the night sky. Maybe it’s more appropriate to think of the dog star as a companion willing to sit with us during the shitty time of the year?
Maybe my dogs saved my life. Maybe there were enough times when knowing I had to get home to feed them, walk them, clean up after them, kept me from spiraling too far away to come back. I knew they were always there at home waiting for me, not much they could do, but I know they wished it for me. When I came home drunk at night and the tails still thumped, I took it as, “it’s ok, you’ll get ‘em next time.” Strangely, I thought God had exactly the same view of and position in my life.
I’m sober because I let a God of my understanding and somewhat-conception back into my life. Maybe there’s room for more…
1. Dog Day Afternoon!
This is one fantastic movie and a true story!
2. This Never, Ever Gets Old
I’m sorry, this makes me laugh every single time.
3. Even More Amazing!
This also makes me laugh, every single time. Sorry, not sorry.
4. Rehab Puppies?
This is kind of a cool idea, having addicts and alcoholics foster a dog!
5. The Very Best Dog Videos
This is what you get when you search “very best dog videos on the internet.”
For us, reading and writing have been a big part of recovery and sobriety. We thought we’d start sharing some of our favorite books on the topic of recovery, addiction and general happiness and telling you how they helped us! If you have ideas, thoughts, comments, suggestions or if there are some books that you’d like to chat about, well, we’d love to do that with you. 8
And here’s the newest edition to The Sober Library:
The “Anyone Anywhere” Meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous
It’s the “Anyone Anywhere” meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, this Tuesday evening at 7pm. We had a glitch last week, but we’re ready to go and hope you can join us this Tuesday! It’s 1/2 AA Meeting, 1/2 Alcoholic Book Club and 1/2 something else I haven’t figured out yet.
Hope you can join us!
From the TFLMS Archives:
Dogs have different standards of self-respect, particularly in “dog-spreading” type situations.
At least, that’s where I’m going with this.
I don’t currently have a dog, despite frequent urgings by children who would love to have a dog present for their visits. I point out that despite my great love of dogs, it’s possible I’ve hit the lifetime “clean-up poop quotient.”
My mom named her. It is norwegian for “girl.” Yes, I literally had a dog named “girl.”
I also had my wisdom teeth removed on that “visit.” If it’s going to be shitty…
Don’t get me wrong, they’re dogs, not “fur babies,” and I don’t want them talking back. As much as I love dogs, I think talking dogs would be a really bad idea.
A really good dog who got “promoted” this time around.
Seriously, write a book review and we’ll probably put it up.
Wow! I love how real it is. “You are a good man Charlie...” I mean TBD. Have a great Sunday. 😎
Such a beautiful post, TBD - thank you for a lovely read - heartbreaking, yet empowering.
Your picture of Kayla shows a gorgeous girl, and having read your words about Moose last year it was lovely to revisit today what he had meant to you.