What's That Growing In Your Head?

For various reason, none of them having to do with common sense or regular health care checks I went to a neuro-ophthalmologist so that I could get an official letter which says in short "She really, really, really can't see worth a damn. She has not been faking for 54 years so cut her a break."

I HATE going to the eye doctor. I have a rare genetic condition so they always get all excited, put me through a multitude of test to prove yet again that my vision is laughable, charge me an arm and a leg, demand follow-ups and gleefully rub their hands together in a Simon Legree sort of way while they say "Whoa Nelly, your eyes are horrible and there is no fix. Sucks to be you!" If I hadn't needed the letter for work I would have happily gone on, staying in familiar places and firmly holding on to my seeing eye people for the next forty or so years.

I arrived begrudgingly, agreed to a test that maps one's vision with a curt nod, sat in a horribly uncomfortable chair with my chin in a cup and my head in their machine and waited for tiny lights to start zooming around, clicker in hand. When you see a light, you click the button. This is simple.

The woman helping me was sweet and quiet for a minute and then asked did I not see any at all. 

"What? What? You started?"
"Just click the button when you see the light flash."

Crap. No lights, I stare straight ahead willing the little points of light to appear. As if by magic three or four bright flashes appear in a row, top left, click click click. Then, nothing.... 

Quick! three or four bright flashes appear in a row, bottom right! Click click click.... I do an extra click just in case I miss counted.

Nothing! I can't cheat since I do not really know where or when the flashes will appear, but I would, if I could. Test over. The lady is now smiling at me with a touch of pity. 

"You did real well."

Liar! I want to beg to do it again. I stare balefully at the machine, sitting there like a piece of modern sculpture, taunting me. I want to cry.

The last time I did this test the map it made of my eyes looked like a target, circles of no vision radiating out like waves from the center. This time it looks like a butterfly, with the wings and body having no vision at all. It looked bad, and dark and absolutely terrifying to me.

My vision sort of resembles this Rorschach ink blot

The doctor, wasting no time, not being gleeful and not rubbing his hands together says, "Yep, you definitely have  genetic neuro-scatomatas. HOWEVER..." 

I feel myself shrinking.

"Usually when we see this 'tubing' it is caused by something pressing against the optic nerves"

I shrink more. I feel like I am six.

"Usually an enlargement of the Pituitary glad. Maybe surgery is an option. We can't fix the genetic defect (No shit Sherlock) but sometimes reducing the pressure can help to return the vision to it's pre-swelling state."

I feel like a toddler walking out, lost and alone, looking for my sister who has driven me here. Everybody in the waiting room is acting like nothing has changed. Everybody in the waiting room is reading, toe tapping, finger drumming, waiting to get their new prescription and get in their cars and drive off into their normal life. 

The right side of my brain is saying "This is bad, this is serious, this is NOT GOOD" The left side of my brain is saying "Oh look! A butterfly! (Here the left brain shrieks and makes an about face. I suddenly do not like the looks of butterflies) I want a cookie, maybe a couple of dozen. Isn't the sun nice! What shall we cook for dinner? I like red, it is such a pretty color. That machine has a nice rhythm. Doodly doo doo doo doo doo."

By the time I got home my right brain was speaking in a much firmer tone of voice... "THIS IS BAD, THIS IS SERIOUS, THIS IS NOT GOOD!" and the left side had retreated into a corner, fingers in ears saying "LA LA LA LA I can't hear you" but had given up the good fight. I turned to Dr. Google and looked up swelling in the pituitary.

I read a lot of articles, spending roughly three hours on different sites but the end result was always the same. TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR. Oh crap and eff me.

The good news? Tumors in the pituitary are self contained, not malignant. Bad news they can only be treated by radiation or surgery, and the underlying cause can be treated, sometimes, depending on what it is. I was not a happy camper.

I am having two MRIs this Monday, one with contrast, one without. I am hoping (Yes, with my left brain) that this has all been a giant scare and that the next time I take the test from hell I will once again have lovely targets of blindness and the evil tubing will be gone. Wish me luck!

The Real Thing!



Happy Day all! I just thought you might like to see what is inspiring Bunky's Playhouse. 

There is a rabbit hutch underneath it. I found this to be horribly cruel to the poor rabbits who must have inhabited it at one time. Here they sit in the cedar bed, looking through wire as their species frolics freely about the ground. Did the wild rabbits taunt  the poor pet, probably named something disgustly cute like 'Bunnie', laugh at his pampered state? Did the poor incarcerated pet get the last laugh as he saw owls, ghostly and silent in the dark swoop down and snatch up his tormentors in their talons while giggling maniacally into the night? One can only wonder...

 

Bunky's Playhouse --CHAPTER 2—

Bunky is staring at me from the corner of the porch. I feel his eyes on me before I spot him eyeing me from behind the glider. He is tiny, a serious little man in a serious little world of his own. He wears a coonskin cap we found at a yard sale and swimmer’s goggles cover his eyes. His blue striped shirt, once fresh and clean looking, is faded, permanently wrinkled and shrunken, having been washed nightly for two months now. I think, as I always do, that I need to find a shirt he likes as well or he will go through life with his buttons popped and his seams split. His shorts ride low, waist band sliding under his rounded belly into a natural resting place on his scrawny hips. Just below his clay stained knees his rubber boots, bright red and shiny look huge and out of place and ridiculously new. He is dressed for adventure.

My heart jumps. I want to run up through the yard and onto the porch and grab him up. I want to swing him around and smother him with kisses and inhale his milk-and-dirt little boy smell. I want to sit in the glider with him on my lap and sing silly songs and tickle his sides until he begs for mercy through his giggles.  I want, I want, I want…

I stroll through the yard slowly, stopping to smell a flower, to pull a weed, to toss an acorn. I approach him coolly. Bunky is the epitome of cool. Four years old and outbursts annoy him. I nod at him as I settle on the porch steps, acknowledging his presence as he sidles up next to me and lays his hand on my shoulder. I pat the tiny fingers, softly, and we stay like that a while, looking out into the yard at the teeming wildlife and the luscious greenery, companionable.

Bunky tells me he wants to go adventuring, please, walk in the woods and find some interesting bugs for his collection. I shudder at the thought of more creepy crawlies at the same time I am bursting with pride at his inquisitive mind. I see that he has his mason jar ready. Holes punched in the lid and grass in the bottom. A magnifying glass, net and bug book sit next to it. They are in a neat row, laid out in a manner that tells me he was expecting an argument and wanted to have everything ready to point at if and when I said no. The book is there simply to make me happy. In an effort to curtail his passion for insects that actually moved and bred I bought him the book. As good as having them I explained, but better!  More variety, more color. You can learn about them without actually having them in your room! He had looked at me somberly and called me out. You only bought it so you wouldn’t have to hunt bugs with me. It is a simple, and true statement but the way he says it sounds so bad I cringe like I have been caught doing something mean and petty.

No worms, Bunky, I mean it, no worms and no grubs and no crickets. Deal? And nothing that bites or stings! And no stink bugs!

I am talking to myself; he has run off the porch and is trotting around in circles with his arms flapping erratically calling out Butterflies? How about butterflies? Are you afraid of butterflies? Are they scary granma? He giggles. My heart soars.

Glory-FREAKING-Hallelujah

I had asked my grandkids to help me straighten up the living area once and was ignored. Twice more I asked the same question, twice more I was greeted with the same non-response.  I got a little loud, yelling “HEY” in their general direction. 8 limpid eyes rolled towards me, blinking furiously as if they had just been woken from a trance or pulled up from the depths of the sea. The children make little sighing, grunting strung together sounds which all seem to end with the only understandable word being ‘tired’.  After 15 minutes of this I shouted (This is how you know I am a college educated, literate, refined and calm woman) “Dammit all, if you can make a freaking mess for 10 freaking hours straight you can help pick up your freaking mess  for ten freaking minutes without wearing your scrawny freaking mess-making ass freaking out!  FREAK IT, FREAKEDY FREAK FREAK FREAK IT ALL!”

At this point I feel I must explain a few things:

1.          I stopped smoking. Since homicide is frowned upon, and lollipops are NOT a satisfactory oral substitute, I find that my temper is, on occasion, a bit quick and disproportionate.
   2.    Yelling ‘freaking’ is just not as satisfying as dropping an F-Bomb so I need many more of them, more and louder it seems, to get my point across with the same intensity. I have yet to determine the number of ‘FREAKING’s necessary to make people snap to it as crisply as one well placed F*CKING would have done before I became a kinder, gentler person but I can tell you the eleven  repetitions  in the sentences above are still not nearly enough.
   3.    We were supposed to close on a new (to us) house a month ago. In anticipation of the move my son, his wife and four children moved in with us as they would be renting the house we are in now. Their lease ending overlapped our closing by a few days, NO BIG DEAL. Surely everyone can get along for a few days! A month later all 8 of us are nearing the end of our patience and my poor house is a shambles. Boxes line every wall; people are crammed into every room…. Picture cold war era Soviet Union style (but bigger, granted) living quarters. Without the vodka. Not even a Zima. Argh
   4.    Our air conditioner chose a day with a high of 98 degrees and about the same percentage of humidity to conk out on us. I have vaulted ceilings upstairs so by 6 pm it was 100 degrees in my bedroom and still warming up nicely. My husband was working late, fixing someone ELSE’S air, and wasn’t sure when he would be home.
   5.    Gobstoppers stuck to the carpet stomped on with bare heel when one is nicotine starved, sweat soaked and claustrophobic are the freaking tripper of all triggers. Who’d a thunk it?

The kids, like wild animals penned up together for too long snarled and snapped at each other until their mother jumped in. With lots of tattling, ‘I didn’t touch it’s and ‘that’s not fair’s the rooms were picked up, swept up and vacuumed up in a random kids-don’t-see-mess-but-mom-promised-us-junk-food-if-we-do-it sort of way. I felt a little bad about losing it, but not enough to not appreciate the now litter free rooms. 

By the time they were done the kids had forgotten what they were snapping at each other about and were enthralled with the forgotten treasures they had found while cleaning up. I pointed out to the tots that they had complained for an hour and only cleaned for 15 minutes. Although I clearly remember doing the same thing when I was little I don’t remember WHY so I decided to consider this an invaluable anthropological experience. When I asked them, because I am a foolish granny who apparently loves redundant and/or rhetorical questions why they balked so when I asked them to help me clean up responded “But it’s easier to make a mess!”  How can I argue with that? 'Freaking-A' I responded.

My son piddled about in the kitchen with supper and my husband came home and Glory-FREAKING-Hallelujah had the needed part for our AC in the garage. I ate my meal, went upstairs to a now seemingly balmy 96 degree room and listened to the hum of the air conditioner while I contemplated what I had learned.

Air conditioning can be considered a necessity in the south in July if for no other reason than that it stops gobstoppers from melting into the carpet. Kids never, ever change from generation to generation, and there might be some merit to being a pack rat although I will deny I ever said that if called out by my mate, I am glad I stopped smoking even if it isn’t freaking easy and my life is never dull. All in all a handful or worthwhile lessons.

Louisiana, Part I: The Way It Was

I recently spent six days in Louisiana in my father’s home town of Abbeville. According to Wikipedia ‘Abbeville is a small city in and the parish seat of Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, United States, 150 miles (241 km) west of New Orleans. The population was 12,267 at the 2010 census. Abbeville is in the heart of "Cajun Country", and is home to many restaurants that specialize in the authentic tastes of the region.

Abbeville is the principal city of the Abbeville Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Vermilion Parish. It is also part of the larger Lafayette–Acadiana Combined Statistical Area.’

Abbeville for me is a piece of home, something remembered as unchanging, wild and fecund and so beautiful it makes my heart ache.

From left, back row, My mother Ann Sorbet, Aunt Geneva, John Sorbet Jr with baby James, Grandmother Sorbet, Grandfather Sorbet, Aunt Joyce, Mary Sorbet

From left, second row,  cousin Roy, cousin Scott, cousin Rose Marie, cousin Nancy, myself, Elizabeth Sorbet, Uncle Agee, Uncle Harold

From left, thrid row, cousin Jeanne, Joe Sorbet, Robert Sorbet

The old house, 1964

When I was a child we would spend a few days in Abbeville every time we made a move from one of my father’s posting to the next. My parent’s traveled at night, Ostensibly because the traffic was less, in reality because the 6 or 7 or 8 kids in the car slept for the most part, alleviating the need for potty stops and refereeing of arguments which consisted of  ‘He’s BREATHING again’  “She won’t get her elbow outta my face” ‘He has his foot on my book!’ ‘Why did she get a coke when we stopped last time?’ ‘That dog peed on my stuff!! I can’t wear clothes that smell like dog pee!!’ ‘STOP HUMMING’  ‘She’s eating the last apple and I wanted it!’ ‘Get off my pillow!’ ‘Make him STOP BREATHING’. 

While I am sure that my folks often were tempted to make us all stop breathing we would tumble out alive and in one piece and the end of a crushed shell road into my grandparent’s yard and be slapped in the senses with the lovely aromas of ozone and chickens, rotting vegetation and charred rice, fig preserves and baking cinnamon rolls.

If we came early enough my grandmother would still be in her soft faded robe and nightdress, her long graying hair in a thick braid down her back. She had lovely hands, coarse and worn and strong and gentle that made me feel like she could do anything. She had raised fourteen children (that alone merits ridiculous honors) and each had turned out strong and proud and successful in their own right. Others might remember her differently but to me she was always soft spoken and tough as nails. She was the epitomic matriarch and I would have done anything she asked of me.

My grandfather would be sitting in his chair near the fire, waiting basically with arms extended for us to run and hug him or shake his hand. He too was an icon in my mind. A man who knew work, who knew family was all important. I never saw him dressed in anything but overalls. In the cool months he wore long johns under, in the hot months he wore a short sleeve button up shirt under them. He was brown as a walnut with a thick graying curly, unruly bush of hair (which I have inherited sad to say). His Stetson hung on the chair back, his hands rested on his knees, his low gravelly Cajun accented voice swirled around my head mixing with the scent of the rolls and the smell of the ozone and my grandmother’s thick braid  weaving a fabric of wonder and love.

Each of these visits had certain adventures that could be counted on.

We always drove down to Pecan Island for a trip through the swamps while my Uncle Agee pulled his crawfish traps. ‘Gaters would swim right up and under the little pirogue he towed behind his putt-putt motored boat, turtles would swim up and be snagged handily and tossed in the boat with us. The turtles were destined for restaurants in New Orleans, the crawfish for sale all over the state and country, the ‘gaters were cursed as varmints. Once endangered, they now numbered in the tens of thousands and roamed freely literally eating my uncle’s profits and sunning themselves in his front yard.  My Aunt Geneva would often meet us afterwards with iced cokes, their little curvaceous glass bottles sweating rivers in the heat and humidity cutting clear trails through the frosted glass, a rare and wonderful treat for us, almost as exotic as the ‘gaters and swamps.

After Pecan Island we would carry coolers of crawfish back to my grandmother’s house and boil them up in the yard, excitedly waiting for visits from the cousins who were near by. My Uncle Harold and Aunt Joyce had settled near Abbeville so we saw them each and every time. Their children were close in age to the second four in my family and we liked them. They were a bit wild, a bit exotic and we raced around telling them our secrets and listening to theirs.

We always made a visit to their house on our trips as well. They lived on a river and if we were lucky a boat would sound it’s horn while we were there prompting the bridge man, or my uncle or one of my cousins to race out to the bridge to open it, allowing the boat to pass. The old bridge was wooden and had a crank which swung the bridge sideways instead of opening it up like a modern bridge would. Sometimes a car racing across the bridge with too much speed went airborne, hitting the wooden roadbed with enough force to settle it a bit too deep into the mud for further travel. What with the actual road now being 8 or more inches higher on either side than the middle of the bridge, the car would sit, stranded while a tow truck was called and my father and uncles muttered ‘damn fools’. On several occasions my cousin Scott had gotten his hands on a packet of Picayune cigarettes and we would smoke the terrible, acrid things, tuning green and talking about our visions of the future.

My godparents lived a short drive away and we always made a visit to their house a priority. My godfather, Ray Allen, was my father’s first cousin and he was usually working when we visited during the day. He too was an overall or coverall man. He too had the lovely accent, the quick laugh, the enchanting voice, the angelic smile. He loved his daughters and he loved his wife, my Godmother Earline, and he loved his work. My godmother always had a gift for me. She knitted, crotched and sewed. Whatever she made for her daughter’s she made for me. I can not tell you how special that woman made me feel, quick with a hug, with a joke, with a story, with a touch.  I was part of her family. She called me her little blond, her Cher, her Chat. 

Her brother-in-law (another cousin… there are many) would often be there if we came at lunch or in the evening. Everyone called him Bubba and I never questioned the fact, never even considered it might be nickname or an endearment.

These visits were never long enough for me. My father had many, many brothers and sisters and we never got to see even a quarter of them on any given visit. When we sat around the table after supper at my grandparent’s house I saw pictures and heard stories of their exploits, their successes and their failures. I looked at pictures of my many Aunts, Uncles and cousins, most unknown to me or vaguely remembered from a vacation years before. So many were blond! They rode horses (something I always wanted to do), swam in oceans (something I am still terrified to do), they got scholarships and joined the military and got pregnant out of wedlock, they were cooks and scientists and engineers and teachers. All of the aunts and uncles were called by both their first and middle names. For years I thought there must be twenty children in the family and they were all geniuses and beautiful and wildly successful at anything they tried to do. 

Time and age have put these stories into perspective but I still love imagining these hordes of gorgeous brilliant people carrying my name and making the world just that much more exciting to live in.

Whooozat Baby?

Being in the Bible Belt, the argument arises often for Evolution Vs. Creationism. When you consider that the entire human being, body, mind and soul, develops from two cells how can the existence of some higher power be questioned? When you see them develop and grow, trying and failing and trying again until success brings them to a new level of achievement, how can one doubt that evolution is an absolute truth?

In their nascent (Definition: beginning to exist or develop) stage, they  are pretty much useless. Cute as can be but with no direction, no desire to grow, to learn, to change. They do not even know these things are a possibility yet. They have two modes of operation, on and off, and three activities, eating, passing water, and the seemingly endless pooping. This is the only time in a life when base human desire is not at war with society This stage lasts, in my experience about six weeks. This coincides roughly with the amount of time it takes a mother to recover mentally from the shock of actually having the cherub (for the most part) and start looking at her darling little lump of fuzzy headed, sweet smelling, pink cheeked goodness and expecting more of it.

We get in it’s face, grinning like madmen and say stupid things like “whooozat baby? “ in a high falsetto guaranteed to get their attention. We shake their little feet, we rub their heads, we tickle their ribs. We swing them up over our heads, tuck them under our arms like footballs, sit them up, roll them over, shake toys in their face that rattle, hum, vibrate, play single notes and simple melodies. We maneuver their bodies into several different outfits a day, introduce them to confining shoes and wipe their butts in public places. The first time a child smiles, or laughs, or squeals, if you look at it’s little face immediately after, you will see it get a horrified, terrified, what the hell was that? Expression on it’s face. Once a baby figures out that that noise or gesture  has an immediate return the first step of evolution is complete. They have figured out tit-for-tat, only they want way more than they give.

I have always been amazed that it takes a kid a solid month to learn to smile at you when expected, which is seemingly simple, and the same month to develop at least three separate cries…tired cry, hungry cry, wet cry…and for some really bright children a fourth, the ‘I do not want to be alone so I will annoy the hell out of you until you  bow down to me and pick me up wench’ cry.

Progress is slow in the first few months, because while learning, they are also learning how to learn which slows them down. I find that once they have that part figured out, the ability to concentrate and to try things pick up speed at an alarming rate. The first major change in a baby is rolling over… usually as parents we discover they have this one down when they use it to roll OFF of something and scare the bejeezus out of us. This is a necessary occurrence. We learn at that point in time that we are not perfect parents (a lesson we seemingly need to learn again and again) and they learn that a boo-boo generates an effluvium of love, snuggles, nurturing and guilt, all useful tools in an older child’s arsenal, tucked away to be turned back on their parents at a later date.

When a child learns to crawl, we learn just how deadly our environment is. After reading the books and talking to other parents, doctors, experts of some kind in the field of childrearing we usually feel like we have a handle on it. We have plastic guards stuck in our plugs, cabinets that it now takes an engineering degree to open, locks on the toilets that they won’t even be able to reach or have any interest in whatsoever for months. We have baby gates, crib bumpers, safety seats and soft toys. We go to all this trouble just to have them pull themselves across the floor using one foot and one finger to find the penny you dropped in your 8^th month of pregnancy and were too fat to pick up. It has since been kicked under the couch, and , while you would need a broom handle to reach it, this 24 inch long creature with no coordination can snag it and pop it in their mouth before you can say “whooozat baby?” Never owned a paper clip? They will find one. Dog food, beach sand, ancient Fruity Pebbles, pop tops, tortilla chip corners coated in dust, mints, toothpicks, bottle tops will all turn up. Usually already in their mouth, and usually when there is someone visiting that you want to impress with either your clean home, your excellent mothering or both.

At this point in time, mothers begin to wish for the little lump of fuzziness that the child had been. This is genetically programmed into us, supposedly so that we continue the species, but is also born out of a nostalgia for that time, so shortly gone, when being a mother was all love and fatigue and very, very little drama.

Once the child starts walking, which we foolishly push them and push them to do, we are done for. Three things happen at this point. They beat us for one. They have legs six inches long but can run like the wind, with a silent stealth they vanish into seemingly thin air in the mall, up steep flights of stairs, towards roads, rivers and pools. Every time they do this our reactions tell them they can make us crazy.  They have won the game already, neither parent nor child realizing the immensity of this discovery, that this is an epiphany, but understanding that this is true all the same. They love that. The second thing that happens at this time is that we realize we are not perfect parents (again) and thank God, or the heavens or our own good sense for giving us the speed, the strength, the stamina to catch them before they run into or stumble into or fall into tragedy. The third thing that happens is that children develop a love affair with the Band-Aid. Kids can never get enough Band-aids. This is true until they reach the age when grossing other kids out is more valuable to them than having a cool Band-Aid hiding a mystery boo-boo and the curiosity and envy in other children that it generates.

Parents love to moan when their children start talking because they never are quiet again. We grouse about it to each other, but always with a smile, a shrug, a who knew sort of gesture which is hiding our pride in this phenomenal accomplishment. Secretly we are entranced by conversations about puppets and cookies and how to use a potty (YAY!!). We think they have finally learned something that can only help us. They can tell us when they are sick or tired or hungry. They no longer grunt or cry in frustration when they want or need something but can convey these things to us accompanied by a cute little baby accent and a sweet smile. Fools that we are we welcome this, read to them, teach them how to rhyme, to recite the alphabet, to count, to sing. We chatter endlessly about fanciful things like fairies and transformers and dragons and gnomes. These are the halcyon days. The full impact of children having the ability to converse is hidden from us until the dreaded all out assault of puberty.

An internal alarm goes off in a child on the day they turn 15 telling them their time as a child is finished. Their bodies wake up with a jolt, changing daily, shooting up, clothes busting at the very seams. Their faces explode, their hair goes nuts, their bodies changing so quickly and dramatically that it causes physical pain.  Your child goes to bed a child and wakes up the next day as some pod person/zombie/Godzilla/3 month old/seer mutation of what you knew before. The exact same sequence of events brings screaming rages one day, desperate tears the next followed by total nonchalance  the third. A child’s body becomes the physical equivalent of a tempest in an ungainly, pimpled teapot and life as you knew it is over. No warning, no time outs. Once again, we are forced to realize we are not perfect parents but this time it is because they TELL us. Daily we are informed of our shortcomings… materially and emotionally we have failed them. All parents fail all children, it is the way of the world, but it doesn’t make it any easier to hear. Just when the fatigue, guilt, anxiety and anger threaten to overwhelm them and us a moment will happen that allows that former bond to re-exert itself. A shared moment, a glance, a joke and a glimpse of what has been and what will be again emerges. The only reason anyone survives this phase is because of the 15 years of mutual need, care and affection that came before allow us to hope and pray that this too, shall pass.

It is hard to watch this process, to see someone you love so desperately turning away from you, striking out alone or in the company of a few good friends and a lot of losers, making their own, often poor decisions. It is also, however, the mark of being a good parent, of raising strong children who are not afraid to try and fail and try again until they reach that level of achievement that allows them to try something new.

Ode To Buckwheat

We have a cool memorial not far from here, Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park . My husband and I, trying to find something to do that the kids would enjoy that cost nothing but time chose to spend a lovely day there ‘en famille.’

My husband and I had gotten the kids all pumped up about it, telling them of the cannons, the old houses, the wonderful hiking trail (which turned out to go straight up) and assured them it would be a great adventure followed by a nice picnic lunch. It was during Memorial Day weekend so the park was gussied up, flags aflutter everywhere, waving as if ushering us in. Literally thousands of people were milling about, taking pictures, throwing balls, picnicking on the grass, perfect!! One of my sons, upon seeing a dog race across a field and with a mighty leap catch a Frisbee, shouted “Oh mom, I want a dog like that!” My answer, as always, was ‘No’ (Aside: No one has ever accused me of being not practical. A bitch, sure, but never not practical) My son, refusing to be thwarted, burst into tears and yelled “Well, can’t we just rent one then?” I went into my usual litany of we haven’t got the room, the time, nor the money. Who would walk him, brush him and feed him? He stuck out his lip, turned his back to me and said in a very quiet but very mutinous tone “A boy needs a dog mom!”

Flash forward, several years; our family found itself adopted by a Golden Retriever named Buckwheat (oddly enough, because he was the color of buckwheat) who had been usurped as lord and master of his previous domain by a new baby. Suddenly, and to my children’s great joy we had a dog we could take to the park. He was too fat and too old to catch Frisbees but entertained us for hours on end with his near ridiculous behavior.

It was once again Memorial Day and we putt-putted off to the same park, 6 people and a hundred pound dog in a tin can car made for 5. We poured out like clowns at the circus, stretching and groaning, trying to get our blood flowing before we struck off across the field for the trail. My son, after watching several Frisbee tosses bounce off the dog’s head had given up on that and had decided instead to use him as an engine, a tow truck of sorts to help him get up the mountain. This trick worked great for the first three hundred feet.  Buckwheat lunged up the first few cutbacks, tail wagging, children dragging behind,  Barks and whoops and hollers proclaimed everyone’s joy at being out and about and together on this perfectly gorgeous day.

By the time he rounded the third cutback, Buckwheat was starting to slow down perceptibly. By the fourth he was chugging like a train while the kids urged him on, cajoling with promises of pets and treats. At the 5^th cutback he sat. I am here to tell you that one hundred pounds of retriever flesh is not easy to move once it has decided it is done moving. When the kids snapped the leash and shouted “Come on dog!” he lay down. When they shouted “You can do it” he put his head on his paws and closed his eyes. When they pointed out much smaller and (quite frankly) less majestic dogs leaping over him as they gaily trotted next to their well scrubbed masters, he yawned and rolled over onto his back. To a stranger looking on it might have looked like a family taking a break from the climb, in reality it was a battlefield anew, fat dog on one side, six people in various degrees of frustrated confusion on the other. Needless to say the dog won.

My husband walked back down the mountain, carrying the mutt cradled in his arms like a baby, while the children and I fought to enjoy the rest of the steep, steep hike. The kids were worried that their innocent game had hurt the dog, would he be okay, would he live? I didn’t know how to answer their questions, instead snapping “This is why I never wanted a damn dog!” When we finally reached the summit we stood at the lookout and gazed down at that “damn dog” far below, running, leaping, barking and chasing another dog like a wild thing while my husband huffed and puffed and tried to get sensation back in his arms and legs, face red as a beet. This was just the first of many times that Buckwheat used his considerable bulk as a weapon in the war of wills that is man vs. beast.

Buckwheat liked nothing better than having everyone around him. When the entire family was together in the little living room he was in dog heaven. The happier he was, the more relaxed he got, The more relaxed he got, the more gaseous he became. He would be just aquiver on a Saturday morning when he spotted the mound of kid limbs sprawled across the couch and floor. Fats rolls vibrating and tail wagging he would crawl up on the couch, squashing the kids into the cushions and letting out such vile clouds of noxious gas that we worried about the kids surviving it. Since he weighed more than three of them combined they were stuck, wedged into the nylon cushions unable to rise or even turn their heads away. I would like to think this was uncontrollable but seeing his face when they all yelled “Buckwheeeeaaaatttttttt” I have my doubts

One Christmas, after having eaten half of the goodies in the kid’s stockings and gassing them all good once or twice, he appeared to nap while we made preparations to spend the rest of the day at my parent’s house. Now, you have to understand how much Buckwheat loved riding in the car. The enforced closeness set his little heart to pounding so that we had to always ride with the windows all the way down while we joked about igniting fireballs with cigarettes, air pollution indexes rising and birds dropping from their perches in the trees. As we got the last of the loot loaded and instructed the troops to load up Buckwheat lit out of the house and jumped heavily into the back seat as soon as the door was opened. We told him to get out, he stared out the windshield. We told him to get the HELL out, he stared out the windshield. We tugged, he glanced at us, we pushed, he snorted at us. We did both together and he lifted his hind end just enough to let out another chocolate laced poot. After 20 minutes of pushing, pulling, yelling, cursing, wheedling, bribing, coaxing, we just gave up. My husband got in the car and slowly, in a very stately manner, drove Buckwheat around the block. When he pulled back in the drive, he opened the back door in the manner of a chauffer and nodded to the dog as he stiffly and with great aplomb stepped out of the car and, looking neither left nor right, walked into the house.

That dog was proud of his girth, he adored his barrel chest and his heavy haunches, you could just tell he knew what he had and he loved to flaunt it. However, tell that dog it was bath time and, in his head anyway, he could shrink to next to nothing and stay silent, stealthy like a ninja retriever. He would hide behind whatever was closest, stock still, head down, tail tucked, cutting his eyes barely in your direction to see if his mind meld trick was working on you. Not only did he strive to become like a monk in a bad kung fu theater movie, to become one with nature, he tried to do it outside. Inside he could have at least hidden behind the couch, but no, he chose to test his mettle by hiding behind a pine tree with a 3 inch diameter trunk  Giant ass hanging out one side, giant head hanging out the other he dug in, daring us to find him, let alone try to bathe him.

Buckwheat was a good dog. Not necessarily a good dog for the park, or for kids, or for company, but a good dog none the less. Funny and smart and ludicrous and entertaining and an integral piece of our family and it’s history.