the id, the ego, & the single misfiring brain cell

It's just starting to hit home that my summer will be over before it begins. I think it's begun, but I'm not even sure what the measure is anymore. 

I used to think, in my more naive and impressionable years, that "summer" in academia referred to "that indulgent period of time between the end of the spring semester and the beginning of the fall semester." Then I began teaching, and at some unidentifiable point later, I became a teacher. And I'll be damned if I can tell you what "summer" means. In my world, it consists of a string of random must-do projects and meetings accompanied by syllabus and lesson prep in my leisure time. 

And this is a light summer, as far as Academy faculty involvement goes. It seems I got a few extra duties and the immediate project of arranging the English and Humanities Majors' Reception after the graduation parade next week. I've somehow arrived at this point in my career without having ever done a cradle-to-grave project for even an awards ceremony. Gods be thanked. But then...it isn't difficult. It's just your standard herding-cats scenario, so I'm good for it. 

Apparently, I'm also about to be trained as the new Resources Officer (aka, "Moneybags"), the alternate Safety Officer, the primary Honor Officer, and other duties as assigned. And teaching, of course. And reaccomplishing all the Dean of Faculty and Department of English Orientation programs in July. And we'll be doing a road trip to attend a friend's retirement in June. School starts again in early August. 

So where's my summer? Right. 

A propos of nothing, my classes went well. Some of my seniors came by and shook my hand on the last day of class and said thank you. They'd only known me for about six weeks. It was cool. 

Also, one of them--a man who writes like a dream--came by and asked how he could raise his grade. I took a suggestion of Mich's: I asked him to write me a 3-page paper about why he deserves an A. He delivered. As a matter of fact, his arguments were so persuasive that I curved the grades of the entire class. He will make one excellent officer, and I was proud to be even a small part of his education. 

I ended up with far more papers than I'd have allowed to pile up, if I had my 'druthers, at the end of the semester. But you can't always have your 'druthers, so I graded. No problem. Midweek last week, I learned that Joshua had taken his own life about 30 hours before. That slowed me down. I had a couple of days there where I couldn't think, much less trust myself to grade. I reached a point where I was able to file it away for later and carry on, though. Responsibility and all.

I graded all but the last papers, written by my freshmen. 

Then Saturday, Mich and I cleaned house. I got dishes, windows, and floors. She got flower pots, porch washing, and dog washing. Turns out, windows are a huge deal, and Mich ended up working with me on the floors and bathrooms. By the time our company arrived, we were pleasantly tired, but once again in an obviously-habitable home. 

Our guests, incidentally, were Damon and Margaret Renner. Damon is my buddy from Izmir; our division head called us "twins" because we went pretty much everywhere together. We were and still are close. 

Anyway. We were having a delightful evening on the front porch, cooking some prime ribeyes on the grill. Margaret was petting Maxx, and all was right with the world.

Maxx and Coffee had the run of the yard, but were (of course) up on the porch with us after tiring themselves out a bit. Then Maxx snapped at Margaret's face. 

Maxx was damaged goods when we got him, if you remember. He'd clearly been abused, probably by a large, dark man. He would bristle and growl at most men, and his reaction was worse in direct relation to the size and darkness of the man. Over time, slowly, we rehabilitated him. There was an incident many years ago when he bit Wayne's son's lip--Devon was 5, I think--but we were all watching Devon and telling him to leave Maxx alone, since Maxx was clearly agitated. Devon didn't, and Maxx gave him a warning shot. He continued to pet Maxx, and Maxx snapped at his face, piercing his lip. 

I know what you're thinking: Why didn't you step in before that happened? A couple of reasons, really. Wayne was handling the situation the way he felt it should be handled, and we had no reason to believe Maxx would hurt a child. A bit more explanation might be useful on the first point, I realize. In my family, children are taught how to read animals and how to interact with them. They are not removed from the situation unless an animal is obviously aggressive (think rabid). In deep East Texas, animals are everywhere. You simply cannot protect your children from them. So? You educate your children. Wayne viewed this incident as a simple addition to Devon's education. 

All the same, we went out of our way after that to keep Maxx either separate from children or heavily supervised while with children. Over time, meanwhile, his aggression against men went away. He mellowed with age. 

There were other incidents over the years, usually with dog-aggression (or misdirected aggression). We did what was necessary to mitigate the situation and prevent it from happening again. Maxx was a good dog. He just had special needs. 

But when he snapped at Margaret's face, we all froze. Shortly after that, he and Coffee got into a fight. 

He and Coffee have fought before, but I've never seen anything like this. They were out for blood. It was vicious, quick, bloody, and all over the place. Michelle hosed them down and even that didn't have any effect. Because dogs will feed off of human fear and emotion, we finally left the porch and went around the edge of the house and waited for it to be over. 

After another minute or so, Maxx came trotting out to see us. He was whining, but walking ok. We knew he was hurt badly, but we couldn't figure out how. Another 30 seconds, and Coffee came around, too, limping hard. Both were covered in blood and had bites and tears all over them. We thought Coffee's leg was broken. 

We separated them, finished cooking our meal, and ate. I mean, there's wasn't much else we could do at that point. It was late Saturday night, we'd been drinking, and we'd determined that neither was bleeding out or had entrails exposed. At some point, we did our best to clean them up and check further for injuries. Maxx was whining the hardest, although we still couldn't see what his main injury was. We gave them both doggie painkillers and put them to bed. 

Other than that, by the way, we had a great evening with Damon and Margaret. Also, the meal was to die for (if I say so myself). 

The next morning, I woke, looked at Maxx, and saw the injury he'd been hiding: his lower lip was torn so badly that you could see his jawbone. Mich and I discussed the situation and agreed that it was time to put Maxx down. He'd become too unpredictable. We think he may have been in the first (?) stages of dementia. We'd discussed doing it sometime Monday, but agreed that there was no reason to leave him to suffer that long. We'd do it that day. 

Coffee couldn't put weight on her right front leg. We put them both in the car, took Coffee to the emergency vet then took Maxx to the Humane Society. It killed us to do it, but...there was no other viable choice. You can't rehome a dog like that. He laid his head on our knees, and when the lady came to take him, he walked between us and stood there with his head down. He was scared, in pain, and trusting us to help him. I feel like I betrayed him. I know we made the right decision, but that doesn't seem to help much right now. 

Then we went back to the vet. Coffee's leg was not broken, but it was punctured all the way through. They put in a drainage device and wrapped it, then gave us painkillers, antibiotics, and--of course--a cone of shame. 

She spent the first couple of days walking around the house and out into the yard and looking around. Looking for Maxx, I'm sure. It's painful to watch. 

She's getting better. We took the cone off because she doesn't pick at her bandage. She doesn't wander around looking lost so much now (although she's still on the antibiotics and painkillers), so maybe she's accepting that Maxx isn't coming home this time. 

When all this was over Sunday evening, I still had 32 papers to grade. I graded until I fell asleep, then woke at 2:45 and graded until I finished, showered, went to work, and submitted my final grades. Then I asked to be excused for the rest of the day. A brief explanation was more than enough for my department head to tell me to go home. 

Coffee will go back to the vet Friday to have the drain removed. She's already back to her old self, mostly, although we go out of our ways to keep her from being too active on her fresh wound. The rip on her throat is scabbed over nicely, too. She'll be fine. 

My household goods will be delivered tomorrow (it's been three months since they were picked up in Izmir, so HOLY COW WERE THEY BROUGHT OVER IN A DINGY?), so I'm not going to work. I'll go in Friday and finish making arrangements for Tuesday's reception that I'm in charge of. And then? I'm taking the rest of the week off. 

I need time to sleep in, cuddle with my puppy and my cats, read good books, and ride my bicycles and watch the sun rise. Hell...I may even try to crank the mower. 

Hope this finds y'all well. 

d