And so today’s moment of happiness despite the news.
They say that pets lower your blood pressure. They say that pets help keep you calm and relaxed, surround you with boundless unconditional love, would do anything for you, and on and on.
They say a lot of things.
I watch videos, along with everyone else, where pets do miraculous things. Save their owners from fire. Alert them to burglars and bad weather. Run for help when Timmy falls down a well.
And then I look at my three, one dog and two cats, and I glance around at my wreck of a house, and I think, Really?
The latest stretch of challenges began late last night (or early this morning), when I’d finally settled down to sleep. It was quiet, the only sound being my sound machine and the drone of the guided meditation I listen to, which often puts me to sleep. And this is when Ursula, my dog, has a nightmare.
Most dogs, when they have nightmares, move their legs as if they’re running, maybe whine a little, give little woofs.
Ursula howls. An otherwise mostly silent dog, except for her groans when she knows you’re eating French fries, her sneezes when she’s excited, and her huffs (loud breaths of air) as she runs down the stairs to greet you, we never hear her bark.
But when she has a bad dream: “AROOOOOOOOOO!”
Usually, it takes me calling her name once, maybe twice, and she wakes up and settles down. Last night, after the fourth time of not calling, but yelling, I finally got out of bed, turned the light on, walked to her loveseat, and shook it while saying her name with three definite syllables: “UR—SU—LAAAAAAA!”
She woke up. I stayed up.
Then this morning, my favorite morning of the week, I’d just settled down in my recliner with my hot coffee, my apple cider doughnuts sent to me by a lovely student, my three sections of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, fireplace on, when Cleocatra (Cleo) jumped up on the back of the couch. Not unusual. But today was.
Across the street, in the Waukesha Transit Center, which is a parking garage and a bus station, hundreds of pigeons live. Crazy pigeons. Pigeons who think they’re starlings. Kamikaze pigeons who make me duck when I’m out on the deck, who fly and swerve over cars, who seem to have no sense at all of life preservation, and who have often flown smack into my floor-to-ceiling windows in the second floor living room. To combat this, and really, to attempt to help them, I’ve hung a few art pieces, mostly stained glass, on the windows to let the pigeons know that, hey, this is not air. This is glass. One of the pieces, which I bought in Oregon two summers ago, was made of driftwood, with long strings of glass beans hanging down.
Cleo, who has been here for several months now, and Oliver, who has been here since April, haven’t paid much attention to it, as they’re often attracted to watching the whacko birds.
But this morning, my peaceful Sunday morning, Cleo chose to see the beads hanging from the driftwood, and swat at them.
“Cleo,” I said calmly. “Stop it.”
She didn’t.
“Cleo!” I said more sharply. “Leave that alone!”
Bat, bat, bat.
“CLEO!!!!” I bellowed, just as she somehow caught a claw in one of the little holes in a bead where the fishline goes through.
She frantically started swinging her paw and leg around, trying to escape, as I tried to get up off my recliner without spilling anything. Before I got to her, she gave a mighty yank and tore the whole piece down, where it promptly fell behind the couch.
My blood pressure was so low!
I managed, through much contortion, to get the piece out from behind the couch, and then carefully, while my coffee got cold and paper went unread, I detangled all of the strings. I then hung it from our door leading to the back second floor deck. It cannot be reached.
While I did this, Oliver ate half of one of my doughnuts.
However.
Later, as I took a break from doing the laundry, unloading the dishwasher, picking up the groceries, coming home and finding a puddle present from Ursula, putting the groceries away, and reading student manuscripts, I sat, for just a few minutes, on my recliner. In seconds, Cleo was curled on my chest, her head under my chin, and she set up her purr. Her purr is no motorboat…it’s a yacht.
Then Oliver jumped onto the armrest on my left. He leaned into me and began to purr as well. While his purr isn’t as vigorous, it’s steady.
Ursula, sixty pound Ursula, jumped into Michael’s empty recliner on my right. She sat down, leaned over the console between the recliners, and put her concrete head on my shoulder. She doesn’t purr, but she would if she could.
It was a Moment to close my eyes and soak in the sound, the rhythm, the warmth.
The love.
And my blood pressure dropped. (At least until the next bit of chaos.)
And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.
