The Albany Widow

I have a bruise the shape of Eurasia on my thigh. It is colored various shades of the earth: mossy greens and browns and slate grey.

Daniel came up to me the other day blubbering about a hangnail.

“I have a boo-boo!”

“That’s not a boo-boo,” I said in my best Crocodile Dundee voice (which admittedly is terrible.) I hiked up my pant leg. “Now THAT’S a boo-boo.”

Daniel inspected it closely.

“No blood. Not a boo-boo.” he said, and sauntered off.

What does he know. He’s four.

I banged my thigh into the corner of the oven in the dead of the night. I will dispel all rumors now: I was NOT up because I had a late-night hankering for a jello pudding cup. I was up because Kiah was barking and growling ferociously at the closet door. Again. Because the closet, apparently, contains some vestige of evil that can only be seen by her.

I’ve put Kiah in the laundry room at night because she is boycotting her crate. She refuses to come inside at night because she knows the crate is her final destination. Chasing her around the soggy backyard during monsoon season has not been a whole lot of fun, let me tell you. I think the neighbors get a kick out of me running around the backyard like a looney-bird in my pajamas and tall, rubber boots screaming, “Sit! Sit? SIT! Pleeease sit… Come back! No! KIAH!”

All of this would not be my problem if I were not an Albany widow. Because once John comes home, that dog is his responsibility. All of her quirks and her misbehaviors become his problem. If John is home and asks, “Did you feed the dog?” I respond, “She’s your dog, sucker. You feed her.” I think 30+ months of breastfeeding babies entitles me to this response.

Being an Albany widow is dangerous. I need John around to make sure I go to bed on time and to keep me from daydreaming too much.

“Holly. Are you daydreaming about Timothy Olyphant again?” (Timothy Olyphant is my new Viggo Mortensen.)

“What? No! She’s your dog- you feed her. Sucker.”

I turned the light on in the laundry room and stared at my dog, who for whatever reason, decided that was the moment she would obediently sit and look at me with submissive, beautiful puppy-dog eyes. I opened the closet door and let her sniff around until she was satisfied. I turned off the light, closed the door behind me, and immediately ran into the pointy end of the oven door. I shrieked, which stirred up Kiah of course, and swearing and barking commenced. (We’re working on Kiah’s potty-mouth. And apparently my barking when I’m upset is “weird.”) And that’s how I came to have a bruise in the shape of Eurasia on my thigh.

I felt very sorry for myself, so on my way to bed, I grabbed a jello pudding cup. And I ate it in bed.

And it was delicious.