All posts tagged: Miss Tibbit the Useless Little Black Dog

The interview ends with a worm.

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We’re here with Hamish the Corgi and Miss Tibbit-the-useless-little-black-dog. It’s painting season again here at the WideEyedDomicile. The Bosses are up on the scaffolding along the northwest side this season, scraping and painting yet another architectural complexity. We asked Miss Tibbit what she thinks of the house painting activity. “Well,” she looked either thoughtful or vacant, it isn’t easy to tell, “it is really pretty boring. We just sit around in the yard. There’s not much to do.” Hamish looked sideways at her. “That’s a negative attitude.” Tibbit snorted. “Look at them up there,” Hamish waved his nose upward, “they stay in one place for hours at a time and I can keep my eye on them.” “Whatever,” Miss Tibbit seemed doubtful. She sniffed the air and “Hey, there’s a worm over there!” She spun on her hind legs and took off. “What??” Hamish ran after her. Another day, more of the house painted. We’ll check back in with the WideEyedHousehold next week.

Work avoidance.

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Miss Tibbit and I followed the tiny lizard footprints and tail wiggles through the driveway sand. They pitter pattered up a little slope, back down. Around a bump. Wee busy lizard feet. A winding curly trail crossed over the lizard tracks. Once. Twice. The lizard tracks ended in a particularly fancy curlicue. Uh oh. Miss Tibbit and I looked at each other. We’re pretty sure a snake just had breakfast. Later the Spouse and I gazed out at the Atlantic, trying to work up the energy to read our novels. I think the sun was going supernova above us. A pod of Bottlenose Dolphins arched and swam in the middle distance. “I guess we’re clear of sharks,” I said to the spouse and went in for a swim. Three pelicans glided at wave height along the pellucid outgoing tidewaters. Invisible jets roar overhead. “Clearly we have stealth technology now,” the Spouse observed. I’m more concerned with the miniature jets that swarm the shrubs near the stairs to the deck. Dozens of juicy dragon flies are …

Surrender to the Sweatpants

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Miss Tibbit-the-Useless-Little-Black-Dog is pressed against me here on the sofa. She is super fluffy and still a little damp. Hamish is asleep in his chair looking rumpled. We all had a tense evening and I made an early surrender to the sweatpants. You know what I’m talking about. There comes a point when a person submits to the notion that the day is over. That there is no need to be in any way presentable. In this moment, sweatpants are the only choice. Not pajamas because those aren’t even clothes. Sweatpants. Elastic waist. Sometimes, preferably, elastic ankles. Droopy. Large. Sickeningly comforting. So horrifying that even if the house were on fire I’d change into other pants. Mine are 11 years old. I bought them when I was writing my PhD thesis and I vowed I would wear no other pants until it was finished. That took four months. Now they are a faded navy blue. They have zips at the ankles just in case I’m being active and need to shed my sporty outer layer. That’s just …

You can’t drink the ocean.

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Hamish the Corgi, Miss Tibbit the Useless Little Black Dog, and I piled into my parent’s old Chevy truck. I opened the passenger window just enough for Tibbit’s head and shoulders and so that Hamish could get his nose into the air. Any more than that and Miss Tibbit would shove her entire body out of the window and air surf her way to the beach. As it was her ears flapped in the rainy wind of Upper Township while we cruised through the marshes and neighborhoods on the way to the beach. The WideEyedHousehold was on a mini-break to the shore – and while the WideEyedSpouse wasted his time inland, meeting with a friend and talking about cars, moto-cross, and computers, the dogs and I hit the beach. We walked for a few miles but in the dense fog we couldn’t tell. Our feet were moving but the scenery didn’t change. Gulls flapped at Hamish when he ran in looping arcs around them. He was bound to be frustrated in his corgi heart, no one …

Spring on my bookshelf if not on the ground.

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Outside it is snowing. I can’t stand it. Miss Tibbit can’t stand it. My mouse keeps clicking on garden websites. I pretend ordered over $500 worth of dry, sunny condition plants yesterday. I bought tulips in an act of desperation. They are keeping me company in the office, nestled among the things I look at everyday…my dried frog from a beach cliff road in Estramadura region, Portugal. A favorite rock from the Rat Islands. Binoculars for staring down squirrels at the bird feeder. Beethoven on the radio because the Beethoven Festival is this week in Buffalo and that’s what’s playing. Grandpa WideEyed’s Perfect Attendance Certificate 1915-1916. My dented clock. Which would not be dented if it chose to stay on the wall like a normal clock. And, from my salad days – a Certificate of Award for participating in the Middle School jog-a-thon in 1981. I jogged 6.9 kilometers – I jogged in KILOMETERS you’ll note because the school system was still pretending to the metric conversion back then. Spring tulips among my everyday things. They are making …

A good mattress.

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I love a good mattress. You just don’t see too many of them at this time of year. Maybe it’s so cold that people aren’t moving here and there as often in the winter. Maybe there’re good ones under all the snow banks – I don’t know but I miss seeing them. We were out on patrol two days ago when it got a little warmer. I didn’t even have to wear that horrible coat. I HATE that coat. A lot. … Oh, right, we were out checking our blocks a couple of days ago and there it was. A big, floppy mattress slung across a snowbank. I ran right to it and shoved my face into a really nice looking dark spot dribbled down the side. I breathed in hard and snorted back out. I rolled my eyes back in my head so I could really concentrate. I snuffled my chin hairs along the edge, to catch interesting spots along the whole length. I sneezed and looked around. No one seemed to be in a …

The meatballs are in the crockpot.

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The outside world was a rude -6°F this morning. The dogs wasted no time out there during morning walkies. They failed utterly to enjoy the hard, crystal blue sky and sparkling snow. Fair enough. I am appreciating it from my office window. Death dealing icicles are dangling from every house for blocks. One neighbor has glaciers forming in the deep vee swales of his roofline, the forward ends are ten-foot long broadswords aiming for earth. Or his car. Because he parks under them. The snow squeaks under feet and tires. The ground isn’t the ground anymore. We’ve all given up trying to clear sidewalks and driveways entirely – we’ve taken to forming a smooth surface of the trampled up, super frozen mass. My boots thunk on these elevated walkways. Miss Tibbit-The-Useless-Little-Black-Dog pees on them and it all disappears. She can’t be the only one. Melting day is going to be awesomely gross. Bleach down the neighborhood gross. In desperation I applied Swarovski Crystal tattoos this morning. They are tiny, wee crystals on adhesive. Now my cheek …

We sure class up the Park.

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That’s right. When the WideEyedHousehold hits Buffalo’s historic Delaware Park for walkies on a Sunday afternoon, the classiness level escalates. As it should. Olmsted designed this park for promenading. For nodding at neighbors. This past Sunday was cold and rainy. The wind slashed and our rain gear rustled. I made my standard comment, “This is just like weather the Aleutians!” Usually we have the park to ourselves in foul conditions, but after the Big Storm people were out running, skating, strolling like it was a sunny summer day. Miss Tibbit displayed her manners and deportment for everyone by hooting and baying at a big, white pony-sized dog, an ancient Golden Retriever, a large piece of blowing trash (no one has ever claimed she is smart), a brownish dog, and a yellow lab who ran past with a ball in his mouth. Each time she heaved her 35 pounds against her little pink harness and jumped around on her hind legs while caroling out her high pitched psychopathic singing yelps. “Cookie?” I asked each time. Her butt …

The dogs will not have the last peanut butter cup.

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The vastiness of the cosmos has been replaced by wonderment at the intricacies of mammalian interiors around here lately. The WideEyedLaundry is full of gored up shirts and khakis. My mind, in moments of distraction, traces ropey muscles, rubbery tendons, and white bones rather than the sparkle of faraway stars and dark matter. I imagine muscles flexing, tendons pulling, and mighty bison hooves stomping on dusty ground. A buffalo died at the zoo a week or two ago. The strange nature of my job calls on me to transform this creature from fur and flesh to clean, white skeleton. The process involves waterproof shoes, a U-Haul van rental, several students, many scalpels, and protective gloves. Defleshing a bison used to be normal. Well, not yesterday normal, not for me. But most of our human past required the ability to make dinner from something that used to be walking around. Personally make dinner, not abstract-grocery-plastic-wrapped-into-a-frying-pan-dinner. Now, it’s a little strange for most people. I just can’t help but notice the way things go together in there, …

My work colleagues are dogs. And no, I’m not a sheepherder.

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Miss Tibbit the Useless Little Black Dog and Hamish the Corgi work with me all the day long. And they work hard on their dog chores. Miss Tibbit holds the cushion down on the chair. Hamish holds the chair in position. They sigh and stretch and mumble over their tasks. Every now and again, Hamish has to squirm into a better holding position, Miss Tibbit must squeeze herself tighter into her little dog-round position. Today Miss Tibbit worked in the window seat in the front parlor. Hamish occupied himself with holding down the old red settee. I was so lonely. The keys wouldn’t type right on the keyboard. The words wouldn’t come in my careful writing. The day was bleak. Now we’re back up here for the evening round of work. Sweet Tibbit is snoring and twitching with her full post-dinner belly and Hamish looks like he may have actually passed out. And, sure, the WideEyedSpouse is across the room, sighing and creaking around in his chair doing mysterious Spouse office things.  But he’s with …