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Dogs are the most forgiving of God's creatures, even one as opinionated and habit-ridden as Fuzz, my six-pound guard Chihuahua. Of course, the only thing this mighty midget was guarding currently was his left hind leg from a possible second meeting with my big right foot, the encounter of the previous week having culminated in the cast on which he now clunked his way around the loft. The guilt trip laid on me as a result of his broken femur -- the large bone between the hip and the knee -- was entirely of my own design. Even while making the flying trip to the vet, George driving and me cradling the pitiful victim, he licked my hand, obviously absolving me of all blame. I don't think he's quite smart enough to "heap coals of fire on my head," but the result was the same as if he were. The accident happened as the result of our attempts to hang a wonderful piece of stained glass from one of the exposed beams in the entrance hallway to my second floor home, my loft. It was a three-by-five-foot piece which was a gift from the artist who had designed and constructed it, she somehow thinking she personally owed me something for my help in solving her sister's murder. And it was spectacular! It was fabricated in what's known as the copper foil technique, a procedure which allows intricate detail in execution as well as superior rigidity and integrity, this in contrast with the lead came approach, in the finished product. The centerpiece of the work was a pair of snowy egrets just rising from the leafy boughs on which they had been perched, wings straining for lift, flight feathers fully extended. The differences in the size of the two magnificent birds and the subtle shading of the leaves gave surprising depth to the flat surface. The sky into which they were escaping was a pale salmon just above the distant trees shading to a darker hue at the top edge. The piece was mounted in a six-inch wide wooden frame which was about two inches thick, and massive eyebolts were affixed to the top for hanging purposes. Pauline Del Vecchio, the late-blooming artisan of this wondrous thing, had even included two lengths of heavy chain and two more eyebolts to complete the installation. And let me tell you, the whole thing was heavy! Pauline told me to watch for a UPS delivery, but apparently not unlike Topsy, the piece from original conception to realization had just "growed," ultimately requiring delivery by truck. Every soul involved in getting it from the van to the upper hallway was grateful for the services of my elevator; manhandling it on the rear stairs would have ruptured us all. But obviously, it wasn't stairs or elevator which had crippled my innocent dog; it was Sheila Sasquatch, otherwise known as Bigfoot, all embroiled in issuing commands to George Halley, sometime resident and fulltime sweetums, and Ted Trump, now-and-then gofer and young friend, regarding just where, how high, how far from the front window -- and crunch, I backed up and stepped on Fuzz, snapping his upper leg like a matchstick. We all screamed -- well, I guess the two-footed males shouted, but Fuzz and I screamed! The sight of Fuzz trying to crawl away from me, dragging the one leg at an impossible angle, is burned forever into the part of my mind which stores and periodically wallows in all the things in my life -- and there are many -- I ever did, over which to this day I cringe. The men had enough presence of mind to not drop the fragile art work, a fact appreciated eventually by me. At the moment, however, I was down on my hands and knees on the tiles, carefully stopping the agonized scrabbling of a bulging-eyed, whining and panting dog who's one thought was to get away from the pain, somehow. George's Allantè was parked on the street rather than in my garage at the back of my office floor for a change, and the two of us managed to get the terrorized canine onto a terrycloth towel to serve as a hammock so I could carry him without any pressure on his leg. By the time we were on our way to the veterinarian, as I said, he was licking my hand. Even in my anxiety, the calculating and cynical part of my head registered the passing thought that this was going to cost me big -- not the bill from the vet, but pay-back to a dog who had always been able to play me like a well-tuned fiddle. So now, a week later, Fuzz was dining on the most costly dogfood available, was carried nearly everywhere he wanted to go, slept by his own choice -- being smart enough to remember I occasionally rolled over -- in his cuddler rather than the waterbed, was waited on assiduously by all, and was capitalizing on it with enthusiasm. And the gift which I would like to think -- but can't -- as the cause of it all was hung in all its regal splendor some three feet in from the upstairs front window, evoking "Oohs" and "Ahs" from all who were privileged to see it blazing there. All was right with my world. My little friend was on the mend, the love of my life was happily usually underfoot, my work gave me satisfaction and oftentimes real pleasure. And to top it off, George and I tonight were going to attend the farewell concert performance of Edmund Oberon, the baritone who had always dissolved my innards into jelly at every note for as many years as I had listened to him sing. His stellar career had started in Denver, and it seemed only fitting somehow it should close here. |