ESCAPE

Gentle Readers,

Yesterday the nice lady next door, who quite often helps me with escaped dogs, rang the doorbell and I asked Do I have a dog out? She said No, two, the black one and the white one. (Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony. Side by side on my piano keyboard, oh Lord why is this song so dumb?)

So Robin found another escape route, but I was pretty surprised that Scout had followed. He's such a mama's baby.

But just then Scout came running up behind me, so obviously he had changed his mind and come back through the escape route and through the open back door, big smile on his face.

And then Robin came running up to the front door with her big dopey grin on her face.

So the nice lady next door and I went out back to see where they had gotten out because I have worked so hard to prevent escapes.

And there it was: A little tiny space between the house and the deck. Robin had knocked over the cinder block that was in front of it after pushing a garbage can out of her way. Nice lady next door was quite amazed that Robin had gotten through this tiny space. I said, She's the incredible shrinking dog. When Robin wants out, Robin gets out.

Nice lady next door went home and I looked at the little space and thought, Mama's back just hurts too much after all the hoopla last week with fixing another escape route and having Harper take off and get an hour away. I cannot carry a bag of quikrete back here to fix this. So I put the cinder block back in place and wedged a smaller one in next to it and put a metal tub that was in the yard (I think the people who used to live here were into gardening and they used it as a planter) in front of the cinder blocks and put the garbage can in the metal tub.

Now I knew that Robin could move all of this quite easily if she chose to do so, but I hoped that she would make enough noise with the rattly lightweight metal tub while removing it that I would know what she was doing and could give her a stern talking to.

So after a little while I heard a rattly noise near the back door. There was Robin standing in the metal tub.

I descended the steps from the deck and hauled her out and smacked her on the butt and shouted NO.

I swear to God she looked up at me with tears in her eyes.

And I knew what I was.

I was a piece of shit who would hit a helpless dog when just pulling her away and talking to her would have sufficed.

And I wasn't a great big stinking piece of Thoreau shit just waiting for some smart-assed rich kid to step in me. No, not me. I was a little tiny miserable piece of shit that had been ground into the mud by someone's scruffy boot and a cigarette had probably been put out on me besides.

Robin was pretty quiet the rest of the day and she stuck close to me. I gave her lots of pats and kisses and told her what a good girl she was when she stayed away from the escape route.

She's already tried to check out the area this morning - twice. The first time I was on the phone and I pointed at her and she backed away immediately. The second time I said NO and she moved away immediately.

At the moment, she's resting on the floor, next to my desk, oh so quiet. I know she's not really asleep because she's not snoring.

As soon as my back feels better, I'll fix this escape route and we'll be o.k. for a while until Robin find another spot.

Robin, it looks like it's you and me to the end baby.

Infinities of love,

Lola