Incarcerated by Dude and the Domestic Gene

 

               Incarcerated by Dude and the Domestic Gene

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Not really, not incarcerated. Looks a little like Ft. Knox with my muchly reinforced boundary fence to keep Dude out of my patio. I am not Dude’s keeper. Ana’s brother Lito is Dude’s keeper while Ana is gone on holiday.

The first couple of days that my friend have been gone, Dude, the dog with a neurological disease plus dementia, chewed through several feet of chicken wire. Lito soon reinforced those vulnerable areas. A little like Ft. Knox. Without any gold. No razor wire.

I discovered something about myself. While I battled to keep Dude in her own space, battled mainly out of concern for my new screen doors, which to Dude would be dessert, I found that pushing her out with a broom handle for forty-five minutes made me physically sick to my stomach and psychically ill.

I cannot fight Dude. It doesn’t help her. It makes me sick.

After consultation with my daughter, who knows more about behavior modification than I ever knew, I quit force-feeding Dude her “relax” pills. I had to teach Dude that I am no longer a source of goodies. I had been blithely stuffing them in the same mouth that chews wire. I really wanted to stuff them into my own mouth. R-e-l-a-x!

I decided the screen doors were not that important if she eats the screens, she is the one who must digest them, not me.

I closed my doors and opened the windows for sun and air flow and determined to stay inside my house, out of Dude’s sight lines.  This is not forever. Next week we will revert to normal, whatever that is.

Fortunately, this decision to stay inside my house activated my long dormant Stepford Wife Domestic Gene.

The first day of self-jail I whipped up a piecework tablecloth. Quite nice, I say.

I found my blouse pieces I had cut out back in September, made some modifications, and shall have that finished tomorrow. The blouse is piecework, patchwork.

I whipped up two batches of bread-and-butter pickles and a batch of dills. That filled all my empty pint jars. I’m grateful that I can order things such as cucumbers, fresh, and the size I want, from my local fruteria.

Today I jammed a batch of mangos, jars now cooling on my kitchen island.

Stepford or not, I’m not without diversions.

Leo took me out for a big shopping trip one day. We ate out. I stocked up with food from the Pepe’s Fruteria, the Mini-Super, the herb and seed shop, the cremeria, the dulceria and the Bodega. My larder is full. I also bought an assortment of threads to feed my sewing machine.

Kathy, Lani and Nancie and I had lunch another day at the new taqueria at the entrance to Oconahua. What a fun time, good food, lots of stories and catching up.

My friends who are exploring pyramids, swimming in cenotes and riding the Mayan Tren, will soon be home.

Then I’ll be spending my days in sloth, puttering with my plants, reading on the patio, wondering what happened to the Domestic Dynamo.

Just call me Sally Allie Apron.

Looking out my back door

February 6, 2025

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