I am dealing with a loss of sorts. It is not a total loss and eventually I will be able to get it back to some semblance of normalcy, but for right now, I am sad. For those of you who know me, you know I love my back porch or the veranda as I like to call it! Well, I am upset to say, for the time being, it is gone.
Now I know there are much tougher losses to endure, don’t get on to me for being overly dramatic. Remember who you are reading and give me a break. With all I deal with in a day, believe me I know this is NOT the end of the world. However, it is cramping my style at the worst possible time. And it is how all of this has happened that is the most upsetting.
I have always really used and enjoyed our back veranda, ever since we moved into this house 14 years ago. A few years ago when Tim built his lovely new studio/shop we re-landscaped the backyard and added a stacked stone wall and patio of stone pavers. It is lovely. All of the flowers are white and even though our stately, huge tree got blown down summer before last we have replaced it with a new, smaller, elegant tree. This past summer I redecorated the actual porch that looks over this new patio and garden. I bought a beautiful, handmade settee with a soft turquoise and beige velvet seat and brown and turquoise back pillows. I had two oriental rugs out there. One under the seating group and another in the dining area. A hand painted table with 4 chairs fills that dining space.
Most of my entertaining and whole days of the summer were spent in this newly done area. It is soothing and relaxing and it just makes me smile to even walk through the area to my car in the morning. I am such a creature of comfort and looking at beautiful things makes me happy. It changes my day to see a floral arrangement on a table or to eat off of a pretty plate.
This past week I left for school Monday morning, only to open my back door and find two huge dogs lying on the rug just outside my door. Don’t get me wrong -I love dogs. We don’t have a dog because I care too much to have an animal that I know will be alone and lonely most of the time. After graduation I might get a dog, but not now. But these were two HUGE dogs I had never seen before and I did not expect. It scared me for a second when I saw them. They calmly got up and walked off. I left for school. When I returned they were back on the rug and again, calmly left the moment I drove up. After talking to my husband Tim, we realized that as soon as no one was around, they came back to our veranda. Tim had run them off a few more times while I was at school. By Wednesday, the dogs were getting to be a permanent fixture. Soon I found one of them on the settee, my NEW settee. And he was scratching! So I got an old faded table cloth and covered the velvet cushion. The next time I found the dog, he had scratched and wiggled until he had moved the cloth and was back on the velvet. As he strolled away I noticed sores on his backside and looking at the cloth and settee, I noticed blood on the fabrics.
Later that evening the lady from animal control came by and told us and our neighbor that these dogs had been part of a pack of four. Two had been caught and had a rare kind of mange. These two needed to be caught as they were terrorizing other small dogs and perhaps killing cats in the neighborhood. Of course, I knew my lazy cat was safe since he never leaves my bedroom! I told the woman that next time I saw them I would call and if possible catch the animals. She pulled up her pants in classic Barney Fife style and said “Oh, you won’t be able to get near those animals, little lady!” I smiled my “Little Lady” smile knowing that not only had I been close enough to touch them, they had followed me to my car a couple of times. Also, she had no clue what I do or do not know about animals. This is where I will remind my readers- I GREW UP IN THE ZOO WITH A ZOOLOGIST FATHER!
The next morning around 2 am I woke up and went to look out of the back door and there were the dogs. I went back to bed. When I got up about 7 they were still there, sound asleep. I called the police as I had been instructed. A little later here comes the cops, sirens blaring. Lo and behold the dogs were gone. I wanted to call the policeman an idiot, but I am a law respecting citizen so I did not. The dogs did not come back that day, but Tim and I removed all of the pillows and dismantled the settee. The beautiful velvet cushion had to go. And the oriental rugs, too. I can not take a chance on the myriad of people who enjoy my back porch getting the mange!
The dogs have not been seen over the weekend, but this morning the pillows from the wicker chairs were on the ground and all of the pretty things on the wrought iron table between them were smashed on the ground. Glass from the candle hurricane littered the concrete and other small objects laid in ruin. With the rugs and cushions gone, I figured the dogs would have no place to relax so they had moved on. Were they angry and came back in the middle of the night to destroy what was left? Had they tried to get their huge bodies into the little wicker chairs and failed, causing havoc in the process? What is going on?
Tim and I cleaned up the glass and threw away the pillows, leaving our porch even more bare and uninhabitable. Tonight we will see what happens next! All I know is, with all of the stress I am under and all of the perfectly gorgeous days we are having, I could use my back porch! We could watch football on the TV we have mounted on the wall of the veranda, but we have no place to sit now. I could curl up and read plays or write plays, but the cushion is gone and nothing but slats remain of the settee I once stretched out on. I could have my evening adult beverage with friends on the porch but the fear of mange still fills my mind. So I wait to see what happens next or to find out if these poor animals have been caught.
That is another post entirely- where did these dogs come from? Did some irresponsible person dump them off? And what will become of them when they are caught? I know the answer to that, but don’t want to think about it. It has ruined my porch for now, literally ruined it and in a bigger sense it is ruined for now because the whole situation is maddening and sad and awful. I miss my porch.
