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torn between two dogs
Sunday, May 20 2018
Today I spent considerable time trying to square up the east columns of the new screened-in porch. They both tended to lean slightly towards the south, though (since they were both connected together with a pair of girders), they could be made to stand perfectly vertical if some moderate force could be applied northward. Initially I tried using a piece of polypropylene rope looped around the base of a white pine near the brownhouse. To ratchet up the tension this applied, I tried twisting it with a board. This got the pillars nearly vertical, though I feared any further tightening of the rope might cause it to break. I realized that pulling something with any real force would require a cable or a chain and that such a long length of rope would probably just stretch after applying a certain amount of force. So I tracked down a length of thin multi-strand wire cable, some "wire rope clamps," a turnbuckle, a short length of chain, and an S-hook. Using these materials, I ran the cable from the new porch's northeast pillar over to the nearby east deck's southeast pillar (which was about six feet away to the northwest) and slowly cranked up the tension. When I had the pillars seemingly vertical, I installed a couple permanent five-foot two by fours diagonally between the pillars and the grider to lock the geometry in place.
The dogs had been out in the forest all day but returned home at around 5:00pm, just as I was beginning to wonder if they would miss out on tonight's adventure. There would be a surprise 50th birthday party for our friend Rebecca at the Station Bar in Woodstock at 6:00pm, and Gretchen and I planned to go there with our dogs (since that place is generally dog-friendly). Gretchen was working at the bookstore in Woodstock, so it made sense for me to meet her there. I arrived with both dogs, whom we turned loose into the store. Neville is usually sedate and well-behaved there, which is why he often "works" there with Gretchen. But Ramona is a different story. Tired as she was from digging holes all day in the forest, she wasn't as bad as she could be, but she still did things like take a the whole upper arm of some random elderly woman into her mouth. Fortunately, she and her friends liked and understood dogs, and they were the last customers of the day.
Later, our friend Chrissy (who is also friends with Rebecca) showed up at the store (though without her constant companion Chongo the Dog). [REDACTED]
Gretchen, Chrissy and I locked up the bookstore and walked to the Station Bar, which was several "blocks" away to the west on Tinker Street. It had been cloudy and muggy much of the day, but as the sun fell in the west, the clouds cleared away and the temperature dropped into the low 70s. I should mention that Neville's face was still filthy from his forest adventures. Typically the digging he and Ramona do result in spots of pine sap on their faces from the bleeding ends of broken roots. These attract dirt and turn black, and are impossible to clean without a solvent at least as powerful as alcohol. Despite that, people kept stopping me on the street to talk about or pet Neville; he exudes that much charisma. This one crazy lady followed me for over a block as a I patiently told her all about Neville. She couldn't quite process the thing I told her about him spending the whole day unsupervised somewhere in the forest.
There was a big crowd in the outside part of the Station Bar, and they were all dressed nicer than me. People were saying hi and all of that, but I was so distracted by the dogs that I could barely socialize in response. For awhile we let the dogs off the leash, but Roni, one of the professional vegans kept trying to find ways for me to leash and control the dogs. At first she tried warning me about all the chocolate on the ground, but I never worry about that. And when that failed, she told me that the staff at the bar wanted the dogs on leashes. By this point Ramona (who had been wearing a conical party hat secured with a chinstrap) had gone into the bar itself. So I tracked her down and leashed her. And then I saw that Neville had completely disappeared. Fearing he might wander into Tinker Street and get hit by a car, I had Gretchen go look for him. (She handed me her plate of catered vegan food to eat as she was leaving, though it was surprisingly goopy and gross.) But then she disappeared, leaving me anxious about the uncertain situation. I eventually found Gretchen next door, coming back with Neville from an ice cream place. He'd apparently found some of his bookstore friends (humans) there eating ice cream and decided to hang out with them. Now, back in the outdoor area of the Station Bar, I was stuck holding the leashes of both dogs, leaving no hand for a beer (and I'd already drunk mine anyway). I felt trapped and helpless. Gretchen was nearby, oblivious to my misery, chatting endlessly with a woman named Korn and drinking the glass of white wine I'd gotten her very slowly.
Eventually I'd had enough, so I took both dogs all the way back to my Subaru (parked in front of the bookstore). Neither dog is particularly used to being walked on a leash, so walking them is always a pain, particularly when they're pulling in two separate directions and stopping to smell completely different smells (one would often stop while the other tried to keep going). Once they were in the car, though, all my problems were over. I drove to a parking lot near the Station Bar (it was in the back across a creek, accessible via a covered pedestrian bridge). I got another beer, found a nice throne to sit in, and had a nice leisurely conversation with a middle-aged couple from Westchester.
Eventually Chrissy left and Gretchen and I snuck out. The ultimate goal tonight was to have a vegan pie at Catskill Mountain Pizza. The day was warm enough for us to sit outside with the dogs. Gretchen ordered us a pie split down the middle with mushrooms on the whole thing, banana peppers on my half, and slices of tomato on hers. It took awhile to come out, and at first they mis-delivered a pie with bits of meat on it (until Gretchen came back and said it wasn't ours, I had no idea; I didn't know what she ordered, and vegan "meat" is becoming common). The one crisis of the meal came when a woman walked by with her dog, and Neville lost his mind, yanked his leash out from under the table leg "securing" him and ran to greet this new potential friend (spilling the last quarter of my delicious Ballast Point Sculpin). I ran to retrieve him, finding the poor subject of Neville's interest cowering and passively growling; clearly he or she was not into other dogs. By then Ramona had also joined us. What a circus!
Ramona wearing a party hat this evening.
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