I was outside with Snowflake yesterday afternoon, raking up debris from when they cut the beautiful and ancient catalpa down in our backyard. Rosalie came zooming up the street in her little silver Focus wagon. She pulled over to the side and rolled down the window.
"Can you come up to my house and hold Shadow's face so I can trim it? He has a bunch of cockleburrs and I need someone to hold his head," she squeaked softly.
I'm thinking about the senior Shadow, half beagle, half poodle tearing into my face as his elderly mistress eyes up his cheekfur with the Fiskars.
"You don't want to just take him to Petco," I suggest.
Definitely not she explains. I tell her I'll be there tomorrow afternoon. I have known Rosalie and her dogs, Shadow and Tiny, for thirteen years. The dogs are now 15 years old. Even in old age they are still scruffy and cute, resembling clones of the famous 'Benji'. Shadow is the male, chunky and portly from sabotaging the food from his now deaf and blind sister who is less than half his size.
Rosalie is a petite woman, 73 years of age, her silvery hair dyed a dark bottle brown. She enjoys life by vacationing and visiting her family in different parts of the country. She has three daughters and a son, none of whom live in this state. Her mother is alive and is almost 93. She was married to the father of her children for 16 years. They lived in Paris. He was an abusive drunk who threatened her life by putting a shotgun to her temple in the car after he picked her up from work and then one day(the last straw) the lives of his own children. She divorced him when she was 36. She thinks he died of some complications incurred from Agent Orange from his time in Vietnam.
She is little. She is strong and self-reliant. She mows her own grass and shovels. She trys to keep her house up in what she considers tasteful accoutrements. Actually she said she didn't care what anyone thought of her eccentricites. It is her domain, after all. She has moved around so much that when she bought this home almost 30 years ago, it was a treat to have 'things' she could keep and collect. You would be inclined to think of it as gaudy and maybe a little trashy-kooky.
In the past, I have taken care of her dogs when she went on vacation. It didn't take much as her 1920's bungalow has a couple of doggie doors that exit into the fenced backyard. I can remember the first time she asked me to do it and I was a bit freaked out. Rosalie is a retired hospital worker, now a cleaning lady for wealthy clients.
Her own home is cluttered with a collection of italian nativity pieces, angels, figural Avon perfume bottles, paperback books and other mismatched trivial paraphanalia that most people would consider junk. One eave of her house is completely lined with windchimes. On the side of her house is a small plexiglass case with garden dwarves protected inside. A rickety old wood snow fence surrounds the yard and a tattered plastic black and orange sign warns one to 'beware of dog'. Most people would find the condition of her home less than appealing in cleanliness.
She took me down into the basement, explaining things I can't even remember anymore. All I could remember is that her home was tidy(everything thing has a place), less than spic and span, less clean than what you would think of someone who cleans for a living. I was shocked. Time passed and I looked after the pups over the years and really didn't care about the condition of her house because Rosalie is a sweet genuine person who lives alone like me.
I had Snowflake and Rosalie has always made him or brought him something for Christmas and his birthday. She crocheted him this crazy mint green Care Bear with a shamrock on his belly for his first birthday. She explained he looked a little goofy because she screwed up the complex pattern. I thought it looked cool and quirky(slightly deranged).
I knew before I went to Rosalie's today that Shadow would not let us cut the 'cockleburrs' off of his cheeks. It took her a little while to answer the door. The overwhelming aroma of dander and decrepid dog intertwined with a few remnants of stale dog pee pervaded the atmosphere. I couldn't rush off right away so we talked a while and over the years, this is what she told me.
