Category

Seti

• 01.14.08
  Wait….
  Daily, Seti (0)

  I know you stopped your painting to throw me the ball, but is that the mailman?

  

  
  
• 01.06.08
  5 :: thicket
  Chas, Daily, Ford, Painting, Seti (8)

  

  It is a cool, damp, pristine Sunday morning, and we are in between rainspells. I stand in the open doorway, facing the garden out front, to finish a cup of rapidly-cooling coffee. My hoodie is in full operation, tucked beneath goosedown and pulled up over my head. The birds are going crazy in the Moneterey pine out back, some sort of starling gang sqwawking like Cantonese peddlers; the robins declaring spring on the clover, titmice hanging upside-down and talking, apparently, to themselves…in the oleander? I carry the empty glass mug by my side, out onto the footpath and start deadheading the frigid, rainpounded pansies and violas.

  Before long, the honeyed beeswax scent catches up to me, and I’m quite distracted now, so Sunday-morning-giddy to hang out in the studio by myself, and I wipe my feet, set down the mug, and walk into the warm studio. Everything has melted in the tuna cans, by now: all the reds, brewing in a cluster; the turquoise in the corner; an array of brushes stand like swimmers for the next heat, poised and all facing me.

  I take a wood panel and layer on color, in no particular order, but dictated by mental limbus. I can’t possibly stay away from the reds and the chalky turquoise. I don’t know why. And there they go, irreverently, in patches of relief on the woodgrain. That groove sets in, you know, where the cortex falls asleep and your body follows instinct, and your face relaxes, and your eyes no longer see but transmit data to your soul, regardless of judgement or analysis. That’s where I am when the kids wander into the room.

  I love these kids, and I’ve mentioned that I willingly share this space with them, but I know that you know that I know this is craziness for a person in this current mindset of mine to accept, and I all but groan and whine when Ford comes up to me and tells me he wants to paint with wax. Right now?
  And so does Chas.

  So. Behind his back, my brows cleave a furrow into my skull and I bite my lip. Sure, hang on. And he volunteers to use one of the panels from my stack of freshly-sawed plywood, the one my husband just dropped off on my desk, straight off the tablesaw. They’re still warm from the energy of being cut. He is holding a plywood square and standing before me. For a second, that selfish ass of me stands there, all pissy and annoyed, until my cortical brain emerges from deep sleep, probably high on particulates and formaldehyde effluvium, and lays a hand on the situation.

  That’s so awesome! You’re going to paint with me? You rock. Wax is so much fun. Let’s open some more windows, ok?

  

  And meanwhile, as I start scribing into the wax, somehow returning to the groove despite my mania, I look down to find Chas adorning Seti in wrapping ribbon. As if the preppy sweater wasn’t adequately humiliating.

  

  We worked, in this manner, for about a half hour; shuffling around each other like moving puzzle pieces among the clutter. Finally, the rain commenced, and I lost the boys to the outdoors, where they ran circles around the sundial, in the middle of the lawn, trying to drink the rain in mid-orbit. The thing is, I’ll lose them, soon enough, to many other things. That’s what I’m trying to remind that harpy ego of mine, when she’s about to snap at these little dudes. It’s all good, it’s all fun. I can’t believe I even harbor her within me, but nobody, no parent, is perfect.

  

  
  
• 12.31.07
  Chuck it into 2008!
  Daily, Seti (2)

  

  
  
• 04.02.07
  Convalescing Seti
  Seti (1)

  

  Seti is drinking freshly prepared chicken broth. He is eating rice and chop biscuits, stewed chicken meat, skillet parsnips and poached eggs. After each meal, he lets me hoist him gently out the back door and rest him next to his favorite boxwood, to pee. When I return him to his bed, he proudly growls like a fiercely independent old man as I lay him atop his heap of blankets. He will sometimes leave his wicker bed in our bedroom and hobble into the living room to endure the loud music the guys are recording, or accompany me to smell the paint fumes in the room I am painting. We have a temporary bed at the ready in each room, and he treats each as his favorite, so long as we are nearby. Rebuilding leg bones, after all, is a family collaboration.

  
  
• 03.31.07
  Oh, Dear Dog
  Seti (3)

  We spend a lot of time in and out of the house. The screen door flaps a lot during the day, the windows are always open, the gates rattle back and forth on their hinges.

  Since our lot isn’t entirely fenced in, and since we live on a fairly busy road (with the school across the street and with Spring’s arrival and the landscaping trucks convoying in and out of the neighborhood’s enclave) I spend a ton of energy herding children and dog about the commons, keeping everyone away from the street.

  Today, however, I was chatting it up in the backyard with Alis when we both tensed to the sound of screetching brakes and heard that most awful sound which sometimes follows: the loud THUD of a broken something. And as that awful sound echoed in my frozen moment, another sound reoriented me, which was the visceral, unmistakable yelping of our beloved dog, Seti.

  It didn’t immediately register, the disgust I now feel at the person who accelerated and drove away down our road, leaving his or her immorality on the pavement. Initially, my brain took footnotes: Driver has continued driving down road. Sounds like a truck, possibly a white 4×4. I’ve seen a hundred of those today. Seti looks allright. His hindquarters, something is wrong with his hind legs, etc. But I’m sitting in my bed now, looking over at our lucky dog who escaped death once more (twice this year he has been hit by a car) and who is sleeping soundly through his trauma. I’m wondering how a person can be so selfish. What did they think I’d do? All I would have liked was an apology, an acknowledgement.
  People can be so disappointing.

  He is okay tonight, asleep in his cardboard box atop a discarded king-sized comforter. If I crouch beside him, his pupils function, taking in my expression and gestures. He sits motionless, licking his lips occasionally, his way of acknowledging my sympathy. And then he’ll lay his head back down. I run my hands along his back, searching for a growl or grimace, but nothing. Just a few cuts on his feet, black tiremarks on his beefy hindquarters, ten intact toes. A short, tucked-under tail. I worry about internal bleeding, embolism. But otherwise, I think he’s okay.

  Mean, mean hit and run driver. Have fun with your bad karma.

  
  
• 02.19.07
  Our Third Child
  Chas, Daily, Photos, Seti (4)

  

  I read somewhere, ten years ago when we were puppy-surfing, that a Jack Russell Terrier is like having a perpetual three year-old in the house. Well, that’s pretty true. Seti, our dog, is all about the “now” and the “me” and balls and toys. He doesn’t always share; in fact, he’s always hoarded his own ball at the dog park, fending off dumbfounded pit bulls and retrievers five times his size, just by the obnoxious tang in his snarl. And, just like any preschooler, you can distract him off the nasty scent of a dead rat in the backyard just by saying the magic words “where’s your ball?” It’s so easy.

  Ball. Ball is life. Well, ball is second to frisbee, but we’re out of frisbees right now. We have two chronically wet tennis balls (you can see why, above) and one racquetball (a far superior choice to all manufactured dog toys for the medium dog set). Seti will carry the ball around the house, right under your feet, hoping you will throw it. When you sit down to talk on the phone, he will drop it at your feet. When you try disapppearning into the bathroom for ten minutes, he’ll unlock the door with his razor sharp Jack Russell perserverence and drop the ball at your feet. And certainly, when you slip into a nice warm bath, ready to erase the day’s grime off your body and soul, Seti will come and drop the dirty ball into the bathwater. Then he’ll sit and stare at you imploringly, his brown eyes now big obsidian orbs, penetrating their voodoo into your weariness, and there’s no way to resist him: you find yourself throwing the ball this way and that, trying to outwit the bastard but damned if he doesn’t catch your every curveball! He’s a machine. He’ll do this all day. And here he is, twisting Chas’ arm in the new bath.

  
  

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