{"id":689,"date":"2020-11-21T19:57:42","date_gmt":"2020-11-21T19:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/?p=689"},"modified":"2020-11-21T19:57:42","modified_gmt":"2020-11-21T19:57:42","slug":"if-only-we-were-dogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/2020\/11\/21\/if-only-we-were-dogs\/","title":{"rendered":"If Only We Were Dogs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Realize her lack of social grace<\/p>

Realize she’s in a different space<\/p>Mabel, The Juliana Hatfield Trio<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

My neighbor Kibbie and I talk now.  Her dogs, my dog, I suppose, give us reason.  Kibbie is 62.  She\u2019s told me more than once.  My wife balls her fist, releases a pinkie vertical to describe Kibbie\u2019s figure.  Neighbors for years, I\u2019ve recently been informed Kibbie likes the sound of licking butt.   The Kibmeister told me herself in so many words.  So many.  Live and let live, I say, I\u2019m no puckered up nincompoop.  But still.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be clear, I speak not of fondness for oral spelunking, the act, nor a proclivity for aural emanation of such \u2014 gentle, lapping sounds \u2014 but the interplay, the sounds of the words themselves, working together, rolling over tongue, extruding out mouth, paired, a braided corkscrew, like cinnamon-bun or tootsie-roll, but more versatile, reversible: lick-butt, butt-lick.  Kibbie likes to sit pretzel-like on folded spindles, collapsed on sidewalk or lawn, and narrate anal play-by-play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJack won\u2019t stand for butt lick, but Tillie, she takes her butt lickin\u2019 like a big girl, don\u2019t you darlin\u2019?\u201d  Kibbie\u2019s eyes fix on me.  I look past her down a long stretch of mildewed sidewalk.  In the air, a wild tang.  It\u2019s just us.  And our beasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kibbie has two Yorkies.  Jack is 14, yappy, walks well enough with tiny paws splayed ninety degrees, a four-legged Charlie Chaplin.  Once, a young dad walking his 5-month-old shaggydoodle had pointed out Jack\u2019s paws \u2014 look at his feet sweetie \u2014 to his pre-school daughter, an adorable kid I\u2019d met a week earlier.  She\u2019d introduced her dog to my Gypsy, \u201chi Gypsy, this is Jenkins, my puppy, but my sisters and I, and my mom, and my dad, we all like to call Jenkins our real-life teddy bear.\u201d  Kibbie sized up the dad\u2019s New Balances, bent to the tot and said, \u201cJack\u2019s twice your age kid, give me a break, it\u2019s called arthritis, an affliction your dad will get soon enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few weeks ago, school closed for a day after so many positive COVID cases.  Per County protocol, a Phase Two shutdown.  Or Phase Three?  As transparent as the County claims its process, closings are impossible to anticipate.  The weekly COVID report lists the number of positive tests by school, but shutdowns, while data-driven, are not based on numbers.  If not numbers, what then?  A feel?  Wish I was trusted to grade by feel-osophy.  Teachers are advised to take laptops home every day.  You never know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mid-day, I see Kibbie and her dogs.  Our leashes tangle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTillie is in a mood,\u201d Kibbie says.  Not one single sniff, lick, or near-miss \u2014 not even a dog thought\u2014 goes unnoticed.  \u201cLook,\u201d Kibbie points, time and again, Look<\/em>, whenever Tillie passively allows, or prances to tease, or backs that ass up, practically begging for butt-lick.   Tillie\u2019s rheumy eyes give her a look of perpetual sadness, the seeping seems a metaphor, prompting Kibbie to leak too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHer wiggles, a tell, like poker,\u201d  Kibbie jiggles the leash, the shudder a transfer of pleasure.  Seamy witness to public gratification, it mercifully lasts only so long.  \u201cWhat about Cheryl?\u201d Kibbie asks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSorry?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe got off today, too?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I guess what\u2019s happening, my neighbor is proud of her salty, farm-girl persona.  Her way of saying she\u2019d deliver a colt breach by moonlight in the barn with a pan of water in a night shirt.  By refusing to anthropomorphize dog behavior, it\u2019s her way of standing apart from the neighborhood Rover drivers, man\u2019s best friend riding shotgun: groomed, neutered, ribboned companion, window down, nose up as they pass.  No coy rejection of dirty animal for Miss Kibbie, no way, rather a warm, moist, slurpy embrace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A dog sniff is an invasive greeting, request for ID, and physical exam rolled into one.  Like being pulled over by a brassy cop and asked to say ahh before bending over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dogs can detect cancerous cells in situ, locally, before the spread.  Prostate cancer is dog detectable.  I am 55, to my wife\u2019s dismay, yet to be checked by human tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gypsy digs her nose past my waistband and detects a used tissue in my pocket.  Researchers are testing whether dogs can smell the coronavirus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know where Kibbie grew up.  She cuts hair.  I picture her station last to be swept, clippings strewn like hay.  Freud\u2019s theory of psychosexuality says anal fixations develop by degree of attention during potty training.  Retentives \u2014 Marie Kondo, Johnny Weir, Tom Brady \u2014 follow the rules, bend to authority, tidy up, products of fastidious, observent potty trainers.  Lax caretakers produce anal-expulsives: messy, attention-craving, norm-busting, anti-authoritatives.   Think expulsives, think Facebook friends who rant on Facebook about switching to Parler but stay on Facebook.  Think Tommy Lee, Donald Trump Jr., Whoopi Goldberg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in April my wife had taken to calling me grandpa after I\u2019d gone weeks unshaven.   On our porch, Kibbie offered four times \u2014 in a pre-dog, hence brief, conversation \u2014 to lend me her clippers, nice enough offer, I suppose, if I hadn\u2019t responded to every single entreaty with, I own my own clippers, but thanks<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I shaved later that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kibbie is persistent, but more, it\u2019s the sound for her, I think she keeps saying things, over and over \u2014 would you like my clippers, would you like a Kroger coupon, would you like your butt licked \u2014 because she likes playing it for the unexpected.  Our dogs are BFFs now.  Or, as Kibbie might say, BLFs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Realize her lack of social grace Realize she’s in a different space Mabel, The Juliana Hatfield Trio My neighbor Kibbie and I talk now.  Her dogs, my dog, I suppose, give us reason.  Kibbie is 62.  She\u2019s told me more than once.  My wife balls her fist, releases a pinkie vertical to describe Kibbie\u2019s figure.  […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":692,"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689\/revisions\/692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}