Ruby Shoes and Toto Too

The weekend started off with pizza, My So-Called Life, and Secretary with our friend Erin, who came in from grad school in South Carolina. Then Saturday, after seeing Down With Love, we went shopping, and I bought two pairs of red shoes. They must portend something. I’ve never had red shoes before, except perhaps when I was a small child and all my clothes were bright and cute. Saturday night, I wrote my meager post for the first Ecotone collaboration. I’ve been gradually reading and enjoying the other posts and realizing that the other writers have their “thoughts about place” much more together than I do, but I guess that’s ok. I hope to get better with time. Right now, I’m just soaking in.

Sunday, we took another trip to Polk County for a potluck picnic on the Ocoee to celebrate the first anniversary of Ben and Christa (David’s brother and sister-in-law) and Father’s Day. David’s mom made most of the food, but some aunts and cousins filled out the table. I made brownies and cookies (from boxed mixes, lazy girl that I am). We had an unexpected but welcome guest at the picnic. I posted her picture, taken by David, above. I think she’s a malamute mix, or something very similar.

Ben, certainly not a dog lover, named her Scrappy, but she’s much too pretty for a name like that. She didn’t look like a stray, but she smelled like one. We think she must have swum from her home across the river when the water was down. She kept shaking her excess water onto us, the way dogs do, like those frizzy-headed pencils you spin to make the hair puff out. Wet dog has a much more distinct smell than pencil. This dog was sweet despite her odor. She lay on her back so we’d pet her belly, and if we ignored her, she’d moan at us, a trailing, exasperated, irresistible moan. She didn’t bark. I rubbed her belly with my foot, David took her picture in between petting sessions, and Christa snuck her some leftover ham. Christa and I were broken hearted when we had to leave her, not knowing for sure where she belonged. If I knew she were a stray, and if I could, in good conscience, bring an outdoor dog to live here on this busy road, I would have had a much harder time leaving her. I could have named her Toto. She appeared the same weekend as my ruby shoes, after all. Maybe she’ll come to the next picnic.