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recuperation fort dismantled
Tuesday, February 13 2018
I awoke this morning in the recuperation fort with Neville disoriented from a dream. This dream was another episode in a series that began at least ten years ago wherein I concealed a human body (it's not clear if I killed the person) in the basement of an outbuilding in the woods along Mill Creek Road south of Staunton Virginia (at about 38.096627N, 79.114367W). The body had been walled off behind a pile of stones, and I'd carried on with my life, a little surprised that more stink hadn't been raised about the missing person. All that came to an end in this morning's dream. I passed the spot along Mill Creek Road and saw a big military presence in the area, swarming it like angry hornets. I still hadn't been implicated, but I knew the jig was up. It was just a matter of time before they found one of my hairs in the crime scene. I was so dicombobulated after I awoke that I didn't think Neville was with me. Fearing he'd escaped from the fort, I went upstairs to check the bed to see if he'd joined Ramona and Gretchen. But no, he was still in the fort, completely concealed beneath blankets.
At about 9:00am Gretchen drove Neville up to the veterinary surgeon in Pattersonville (a little west of Albany) who had rejiggered both his knees back in late December. This was his eighth-week appointment, which an exam and xrays to determine the state of his recovery. Gretchen had been pessimistic, thinking that our various lapses in containing Neville within the recuperation fort had perhaps compromised his healing. But of late Neville had seemed solid on his knees, willing to do absurd things such as (this morning) bounding down the escarpment from the Farm Road down to the Stick Trail (he was on a leash, so it didn't happen). So I was pretty sure the exam would go well. Apparently it did, because when Gretchen called me this afternoon from Pattersonville, the first thing she said was that I should dismantle the recuperation fort. In the next phase of his recovery, Neville will be allowed free range of the house, but will still be required to be on a leash when outdoors. I have a plan to robotically control access to the outdoors, but that will have to wait for the weekend.
I quickly dismantled most of the structure of the recuperation fort, untying the 50 foot rope and disconnecting the bungee cords holding it all together. A couple hours later, when Gretchen returned with Neville, we removed the last traces of the fort and vacuumed up all the accumulated filth.
Meanwhile, I had to pack for a trip to the west coast that had been arranged only last week. This involved doing a laundry and getting firewood into the house so Gretchen wouldn't have to worry so much about it. A dumped a bucket of old used tea and other compostables in the garden to arrest outbreak of fruit flies in the laboratory. Later I also chipped away at all the treacherous ice in front of the front door.
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Since I would be gone on Valentine's Day, Gretchen and I celebrated in our usual way (by going to Catskill Mountain Pizza) a day early. I got out of work a little after 7:00pm and we set the pet door so the dogs could not escape (and possibly do damage to Neville's still-healing knees). There was an old-time band playing at Catskill Mountain Pizza when we arrived. But they were all-acoustic, so the dining room (which had only a smattering of diners) was still a comfortable place to sit and talk. A youngish couple with three kids came in, and they were speaking some weird language that I thought might be Norwegian and Gretchen thought might be Finnish. But then she realized it was Hebrew. She later struck up a conversation with them, starting in broken Hebrew and quickly transitioning to English. They'd been in the United States for awhile and were in Woodstock as tourists. They seemed to be enjoying the old time music.
The last time we'd been to Catskill Mountain Pizza, the pizza hadn't been very good. But today was a good day for pizza there, and everything about it seemed to work. They'd also upped their vegan cheese game; it seemed to be Daiya, which, primitive though it is in 2018, is still a huge advance over the dreary 80s-style soy cheese they used to use. As always, we also had an order of fries. While Gretchen had a somewhat-disappointing glass of Pinot Noir, I drank two Captain Lawrence IPAs, which are always excellent.
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Back at the house, Neville was waiting for us anxiously inside the door, so I took him for an immediate walk. About 15 minutes later, Gretchen realized Ramona was AWOL. The pet door had been latched, so she couldn't leave the house. But she wasn't in any of her usual haunts inside the house either. Indeed, a systematic search of all the possible nooks and crannies that could contain her turned up nothing. We wondered if perhaps she somehow had gotten out of the pet door and shouted for her outside, but that got us nowhere. Finally, in desperation, I went into the basement and went into the windowless basement closet, whose door was merely adjar. And that's when I found her! Somehow Ramona had gone into that closet, got behind the door (which opens inward) and gotten trapped. I don't know why she hadn't called out to us in some audible way when we'd been searching. That would've made finding her a lot easier!
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