Twelve years ago this February, I went on a silent retreat to a town called St. Mary's in north central Ohio. It was by a steel-grey lake in similarly colored weather, in a time where I was relatively new to a state I was trying to adopt, and dealing with another human being I was certain I loved, in a relationship that wasn't going well. So I joined a campus ministry group, and went a few hours north for a few days of solitude, where we could only talk at meals and during group reflections and meditation. It was wonderful, although all of my friends were like, "Yeah, you, silent? Whatever." And yeah, I do talk a lot. I'm an extreme extrovert who thinks aloud more often than not, and much of the time I don't really know what I'm thinking until I articulate it. I'd say writing has the same effect, but there's much more opportunity to pretty things up on the page than there is when the words start shooting out of your mouth. No delete key invented for that yet. Conversely, I can shut down at times, and go quiet, but that's come from several years of living by myself, while working in really high human-contact, helping profession sorts of jobs, where I spend my days talking and listening and problem solving and all manner of things communication-related. Everyone has a limit, even me.
But this was way before then, and the three days were a blessed almost-silent break from everything that had been assaulting my brain all semester. It amazed me how much came to the surface when I shut up and so did everyone else. So I came home from this retreat with two salient thoughts. I was going to call my erstwhile boyfriend and see if we could transition more civilly to friends than we had before, and I was going to get a dog. The first option was an okay choice. At least there was some peace, and he helped me with the second, because he came from a family that loved pugs and Boston Terriers, just like mine.
I know that the guy lives in Ohio somewhere, but Punkinhead still lives in my house, and he was 12 years old today.
(So yeah, I got him drunk and made him recite his times tables backwards, naturally.)
I almost cry as I type that he's a "senior citizen", because to me he's always a puppy, in so many ways. I don't and haven't had any babies, and although I don't carry him around in a sling or push him in a stroller, because that would just be creepy, I do care for him, and protect him, and tell him my stories when no one else gets to hear them. We also use childlike party plates on the day of his birthday, and give him gourmet doggie cupcakes, but that's totally my mother's doing. Oh, and yes, the hats. Someone get this woman a grandchild, stat.
Boston Terriers are among the best dogs on the planet for people like me. They are not the best dogs for everyone, because they're intensely people-dogs, and they want to be WITH you and COMMUNE with you and just thoroughly ENMESH themselves in your life until you're a shell of a human being who exists to toss tennis balls and feed them Cheetos eight hours a day (hello, Daddy.)
I honestly believe though that a Boston can win over the crankiest big-dog person, because they'll just love you and love you until you reason that it's your problem that you don't like them, and you relent. Their supposition is that you only provide them with the bed and the couch, it isn't actually yours, and whatever space you can carve out for yourself in it - well, that's your problem. And then one day you find yourself smooshing yourself into your own queen-sized bed, with a sliver of a blanket, so you don't disturb the 22-pound king of the house, and you go, "What is WRONG with me?" And then you fall asleep, maybe, because also, they snore.
Bostons came into my family in the 1940s, when my great-grandfather was a DC fireman, and brought Oscar home to my grandmother. We had Bonnie and Boss when I was a little girl. Boss had behavioral problems, was crazily obsessed with a basketball that he would attack such that my grandmother needed to knock it out from under him with a broom. He bit her several times, and she existed to serve him regardless, and said he was merely misunderstood, caseworker for dogs and little children that she has always been. Bonnie was a fat and happy house dog, who lived for the patch of sunlight on the carpet by the front door, and wheezed her way into older-dog status. And then when they died there were no more dogs. My parents said it wasn't fair because everyone in our house worked so the dogs would be alone too much. When I got Punkin I had no business doing so either, because I lived alone and was in grad school full-time, with a busy assistantship and internships and absolutely no clue how to discipline a puppy. Craig and I went to this lady Geri's house, "just to look" (pidgin English for "going to pick up one dog, and potentially three, who am I kidding?") I wanted his sister, having had enough of men at the time, and interested in an estrogen-dominated household. He climbed up my knee, because Bostons are smooth like that, and after while I realized I was stuck. I gave Geri a check chock full of student loan money, so as I frequently remind Punkin, he technically belongs to the Federal Government and could be called to serve at any time. (Geri also hooked me up with her sister, Pinky, who gave me a free queen-sized mattress, cause you know, her back was wrecked and she'd ordered her a new bed, and was just giving the OTHER brand-new mattress she'd just gotten away. This is the stuff I often forget, and totally miss about Ohio.)
The first day I left Punkin, he weighed approximately three pounds, and actually climbed into his plate to eat around his food. No dog of MINE was going in a crate. What was I, a warden? So I put newspaper all around the apartment, and plunked him down on one of them, in a genius move intended to show him that that was where he was supposed to go. When I got home, he'd gone everywhere BUT on the newspaper, and thus began my twelve-year relationship with carpet cleaner, and his with his crate, which he rarely uses but will go in when he's feeling down and blue, so it really was fine. We struggled for awhile, but somehow it worked out, in spite of one incident when I changed schedules, and he got really mad, and may or may not have pooped on my head when I was sleeping. In my bed. At 2 a.m. And this may or may not have resulted in a visit to a pet behaviorist, who essentially told me it was my issue, of course. I called animal poison control twice, once when he ate half a pack of cigarettes, and another when he snagged a piece of mesquite-smoked turkey off the floor and broke out in hives all over his body, and I sat on the toilet lid all night, holding him and crying, because I was convinced he was dying. (I wouldn't eat that crap myself at this point. I've seen what it can do - save yourself the trouble.) These experiences were sufficiently traumatic that I found it necessary to acquire another dog, a rescue this time, and we made it through four happy years spent dancing to The Beatles in our Dayton dining room before we came back home and I made East Coasters out of them both. In the meantime, he's been a tremendous substitute for tissues while crying, which is a time when these guys like to be with you to make sure you're okay, because they like their people happy, thanks. He also likes sitting on, or near, my feet,
fighting with the vacuum, and any man who will play with him. He likes everyone, but he LOVES my father, and men in general. Hmm.
Punkin has lived in my parents' house for seven years - three of them without me. I couldn't take him from them now, so this is where he stays, firmly in charge of the situation. He has survived epilepsy, colitis, persistent dermatitis, the passing of his big sister (think dog grief isn't real? Think again. I'm not an easy sell on such things, but he was obviously depressed and different for months.), the overtures of his arch-nemesis, The Cat Who Lives Outside, and a terrible bout with overmedication that ended up with our vet writing a published article with him as the subject. He lives for us, cookies, a disgusting array of toys, turkey, yogurt, and Cheetos. My mother cooks his meals, and he has had better medical care than I have for several years. He is an awesome little dog, and although the very thought of eventually losing him is one of the few remaining things on this planet that can make me cry immediately, I needed to have him for so many reasons, each one totally worth the tears.
symbolism...the solidity of earth, the relative weirdness of the 
is nicely balanced with the party vibe of Saturnalia. Schizophrenic, much? At least that makes sense. 
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