Coffee With Eben

Each morning this week I rise at eight o'clock, after five hours of sleep, turn on my light to be sure the puppy has not left anything ugly on my bedroom carpet and rush over to get dressed. Then it is the fifty yard dash to the kitchen baby gate, which I always lose. Chauncey gets to go through. Gabrielle does not.

I grab my keys as Chauncey and I leave the house and he follows me all the way to the gate while I chant, "stay, stay, stay." I am really not quite awake yet, but I know he must not leave the yard. Slipping out the gate, I trudge up the short, but very steep hill to the upstairs. Pumpkin, the cat meets me halfway, meowing and running in and out between my legs with some perverse intention that I do not understand yet. She does not want to be touched, or petted. It seems as if she simply wants to trip me up, which I am sure cannot be true. Who would feed and water her if I were to spend the next five days lying at the bottom of the road waiting to be missed?

I climb up to the patio, unlock the door, and listen for the bounding horde on the other side. Duke, an arthritic old character who was rescued from a cruel master up on Black Mountain, does a sort of hobbled leap as he dances in circles. Joplin, rescued off the Interstate and cementing her place in the family when she pounced upon and killed a rat, leaps up and nearly knocks me over in her joy. Eben, the Australian cattle dog and first child, always plays coy and runs into the bedroom to hide once she is sure I am here.

It took me a while to figure out that Eben just needs more attention and she is smart. She does everything but have a cup of coffee and chat about the morning news, both of which I am sure she would be glad to do if I only had the inclination to make the coffee and buy the paper. I need a piece of sausage, or cheese, or a dog cookie, or something to lure her out of the house in the mornings. There, I share whatever it is I found with the other two, who have learned to wait for their recalcitrant sister so they can enjoy the treat too.

I have to slip back into the house and shut the big door, or Eben will tear out the screen trying to follow me before she's had time to do her business. Inside there is more to do. All the fish need their lights turned on. The river fish eat every two days and the tropical ones eat twice a day. The tropical ones are thrown off by my presence at first. It took three days before they decided I was okay. Now they come rushing up to the top like a bunch of puppies when I tap on the edge.

I go into the kitchen, top off the dog bowl and refill the water, then go let in the pack at the front door. Eben zips in and falls on her back waiting for a tummy rub. Joplin leaps up and knocks me aside and Duke, who has settled down on the front pathway down the mountain just looks at me. I don't know whether he is in pain and doesn't want to move, or just prefers to be outside. He never appears to be in pain, but I always give him the benefit of the doubt, calling and calling. Waiting and waiting, and sometimes going to the bedroom door down on that end of the house to let him in.

The only bad part about this is that Joplin seems to feel anyone entering through that door is suspect. She utters a low rumbling growl that is truly fiercesome to hear and I have to remind myself that I am top dog here. Did I mention that I am terrified of dogs I don't know? I don't know why, but I do know that exhibiting any fear at all makes me a prime target for bullying. It takes all my reserve not to back down as Duke comes in and I am trapped between the bed and the door with two big dogs, one of them very unhappy.

Both of my sons have large dogs and both have worked to teach me how to handle them, so that I do it with confidence most of the time, but I am still prone to panic if I don't keep a tight rein on my emotions.

Anyway, the dogs and fish and cat are fed and I am free to go take care of my own two until noon, when it is time to do most of this all again. And, then six and eleven and....I feel a little bit like a dog farmer this week. Getting up at the crack of my dawn to do chores....well, I do have a big imagination, but I have to admit, schedules and responsibility are not my favorite things in the world. I thought about staying upstairs this week, but it's just not home and my puppies would miss me more.