Our little dog is getting old. He still loves his walks, but he’s pretty clear on not needing to interact with other dogs who are out walking. In part, this seems to be because, if we fall in with friends out with their dogs, we don’t walk as far. Those other dogs, whether by ability or inclination, don’t cover the miles Rascal so enjoys. For the rest, Rascal’s never been big on the company of other dogs. It’s as if he doesn’t speak dog. Perhaps he didn’t get to stay with his mother and littermates long enough to learn.
Yesterday, we had a different experience. A dog-and-person combo was walking down a hill toward us as we walked up the hill. I hustled some so we could turn off onto a side path before the dogs reached each other. To my surprise, Rascal hung back and, with buy-in from both humans, greeted the other dog. To my further surprise, both dogs’ tails began to wag very hard.
“It’s like looking in the mirror,” the other woman said of the two new buddies. For indeed, they were both little black dogs, and they were tickled with each other. The only other time I’ve seen Rascal so at ease with another dog, it was an affenpinscher mix, which is what he is himself. Our doggie may or may not speak dog, but he clearly speaks a dialect of dog. He speaks My Peeps and couldn’t be happier when he runs into another dog who does, too.
We did walk a ways with Rhonda and Nigella and Mary and Willie a couple days ago, and all the humans stopped walking at the same moment, in front of a neighbor’s garden. Which had irises in bloom. Lovely, purple, and iris-like. Only irises bloom in the spring. I consulted the answer box after our walk, and learned that certain iris varieties are remontant. Isn’t that a wonderful word? It means coming up again, for another flush of blooms. Rose of sharon plants bloom twice a year around here, but neither Rhonda nor Mary nor I knew that some irises did, too.
I found myself wondering why Solomon didn’t add irises to flowers he mentioned in Song of Solomon. Further inquiry yielded the information that maybe he did. One interpretation of “a lily of the valleys,” the phrase that follows “a rose of sharon,” turns out be iris.
New buildings are going up around town, and many of them are wrapped in an air-and-moisture barrier that is quite a pleasant shade of green. The Tyvek house wrap that you see hither and yon is white and doesn’t affect me one way or the other. But this other kind really is a great green. As summer draws to a close, however, the green is disappearing under the permanent siding and coats of paint. Without exception, I feel the green was a better color, and other people must feel the same way. Too bad we’re not the ones choosing final colors.
Householders are having work done on their houses and yards in our neighborhood. If they’re happy enough with the work, some of them leave the contractors’ signs up for a while. One such sign on Georgetown features the contractor’s name, followed by the words, “custom siding.” Which opens the door to speculation along the lines of, what would the experience be like if the siding weren’t custom? What if, for instance, siding only came in certain lengths?
“All right, folks, here are your options,” the estimator might say. “You can leave the last foot-and-a half of your house unsided. That’s the most economical way to go. Alternatively, you can have a sided hollow space at one side of the house. That works, too. The downside of that is, if the kids or pets bump up against it, they’ll leave dents, and since some of them think this is pretty entertaining, they’ll take to doing it on purpose.
“Then, of course, you have your third option: you can put on an addition a foot-and-a-half wide. That way, the house’ll be the right size for the siding. Be sure to go with a contractor who measures accurately, though. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself right back where you started, option-wise. My brother-in-law’s pretty good at measuring, and he’s available. Go with him, and we’ll have your siding up before the snow flies.”
C.S. Lewis said that writing is like “driving a sheep down the road. If there’s any gate open to the left or the right, the reader will most certainly go into it.” Whoever worded the contractor’s sign left a gate open.
13 September 2024