Change is Here

Change is inevitable. There are big, sweeping changes: wedding days, birthdays, death days, and the like. But most change is incremental. Evolution takes time. Yesterday’s daydream is next month’s thought is next year’s action. Some moves warrant mulling and consideration, a thorough examination from all angles. There are certain ideas that demand ratification from a committee of friends and family who love you enough to tell you you’re being a damned fool. The gravity of some desires dictates that you pry them open and poke around their guts and knock on their bones until you understand how the entire organism works. And eventually, when a desire or a dream is thought about long enough, the dreamer becomes what he thinks about. It’s amazing. It’s inspiring. It’s overwhelming. And it takes time.

The pace of movement is glacial, but one day, in a tsunami of motion and emotion, change crashes through your roof.

My work situation changed recently. My position had pivoted to be less creative and more sales. Suddenly I had goals and quotas and I was responsible for setting a strategy and making contacts. My marching orders were altered. I’m still trying to figure out if this were a slow change or fast one, but it came without asking if I understood. Mind you, the closest thing I have to sales experience is convincing a small business owner to buy an ad in a high school newspaper. Granted to some degree everyone’s in sales, but I’m by no means a salesman. I’m not that aggressive.

After much thought and conversation with Liz, I asked to have my hours and my pay halved. I explained that I be happy to be a part-time salesman so I could use the rest of my work week to write. Gracefully, my employer obliged. I owe him for that.

I also owe Liz for her patience and grace during this time of change. We had to cut back on some expenses and we spend much more time at home now, but she’s been a trooper through and through. I’m a lucky man.

This new working arrangement has been in place for the last month, and it’s been a life-changer. Each day, I’m a little closer to finishing my novel, and I’ve picked up freelance work to bring in some cash. The freelancing brings us to the structural changes to this site.

I’ve you’ve been around a while, you’ll notice that about half of the content that used to be here is gone. It left town like a sailor called to battle in the dead of night. And you didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. Sorry about that, but it had to be done.

I needed to separate church and state, so to speak. I needed to build a place where it was easier for Creative Directors and business owners—people who might pay me to write—to see what I can do. I had to create a spot free from my opinions and dog pics and tales of overindulging in food and drink. I had to make an inviting electronic storefront to sell my wordy wares. So I moved the best of the work that lived here to my new online portfolio. You should check it out—see your old friends; make new ones.

But fret not, Good Reader, your loss is your gain. Smoking Monkey isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it’s getting leaner and meaner, like a genetically-engineered super Smoking Monkey. Like Caesar from Planet of the Apes. For starters, I’ve rearranged the layout for easier navigation, and I’ve trimmed some fat content-wise. The biggest change is that of attitude, of spirit. This space used to serve as portfolio and blog, so, conceivably, people could have hired me out from here (Not that they ever did). But since this site is now all play and no work, I can operate a little more loosely. Subject matter and delivery can be a little more free. I’m not going to be dropping a million f-bombs or writing erotica or anything, but the tone of the posts are likely to shift toward the irreverent and the silly. Office Tom doesn’t write here anymore. Management replaced him with Street Tom. Give him a chance. I think you’ll like him.

You can’t stop change, whether it be to this website, to your marriage, to your workplace, to your friendships, to your body, to your mind, to your city, to your country. That’s not to say you exert no influence, but some things are out of your hands. The world quakes without our permission. There’s nothing you can do. So put on something nice and enjoy the ride.

 

Change is Coming

Change is coming to this site because it came to my life. That’s what change does. It shows up, sometimes uninvited, with adventure sparkling in its eyes. The fun and creative part of the factory will be shut down for a little while we reorganize the assembly lines for maximum growth.

We thank you for your patience during this transition period.

We Took Our Dog Swimming Because We’re Ate Up Like That

Red Dog, the doggy daycare and boarding facility Fiona attends, has everything. They have plenty of rooms for dogs grouped by size, and they have themed boarding suites for pups with lavish tastes. They have an enormous outdoor play area and they have a pool. Yes, you can take your dog to swimming lessons. We did because we can’t help ourselves.

The instructor is a sweetheart named Sherry who absolutely adores the pooches in her care. She baby talks them, praises them exuberantly, and celebrates their aquatic victories with fervor. Sherry is always up, and who can blame her? She has one of the most fun jobs in the world. I’d splash around with dogs all day. Sign me up.

Fiona was a little afraid to get in the pool at first, but once she was in she was a natural, though I have to admit she wasn’t sure what was going on. We locked eyes a couple of times and her baby browns were filled with a mix of determination and panicked confusion. See for yourself.

She’s doing great, right? You’re so impressed. You’re even Googling “is there a dog olympics?” and imagining Fiona with a gold medal around her neck, the Stars and Stripes waving proudly behind her. But let’s take a closer look at the same photo.

Those wide eyes are terrified and want nothing more than to get on to dry land. The woman from the opening scene of Jaws didn’t want out of water that badly.

After about twenty minutes, the lesson was over and Fiona was exhausted. She napped most of the day, as if she’d spent an entire afternoon playing with her daycare buds.

As for us, we were proud pet parents. Proud, goofy, pet parents. In the words of Bruno Mars, “Don’t believe me? Just watch.”

The Split

We walk up our inclined street on a warm afternoon. We take brisk strides. We say nothing for a while and enjoy the sunshine. It feels like any other day but I know it’s not. We head east on Erie and I noticed the city’s finally gotten around to mowing the public grass.

Neither of us say anything. I rack my brain for analogy, some example where everything turned up aces for everybody. I can’t come up with an athlete whose old team and new team both benefitted from his departure, though I’m sure the examples exist.

We walk up a hidden staircase, a secret neighborhood treasure, because everyone should have a chance to take these steps and one of us is running out of chances. I stumble through a couple attempts at starting the dreadful conversation. It’s a little embarrassing, but ultimately okay because I get the sense no one is listening.

We reach the top of the cement stairs and the observatory is a couple hundred yards away. A little boy pedals his bike in a big circle in the gravel parking lot. He’s all smiles. His mother stands in the middle of the circle. She’s all grimaces.

The boy wears a helmet that looks too big for him. He hits the brakes and says hello to us and smiles. I tell him hi. He seems like a sweet kid. His good day juxtaposes with what I have to do and I smirk. I decide it’s time to be out with it—just shoot first and ask questions later.

“Look,” I say, avoiding eye contact like a foreman holding a guilty verdict, “this just isn’t working. I know you’re not happy, and frankly, neither am I. You and my girl definitely don’t click, and I think it’s best for everybody if we go our separate ways. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you or that there’s any wrong with us. It’s just not a good fit. What do you think?”

I crouch down and stroke his head. He lifts his leg and pees on a bush.

For the last week or so, a rescue dog named Duke has been staying with us. Duke is a five or six year-old Miniature Pinscher with an overbite that gives him a permanent smile. He’s a twelve-pound love bug who’s happy as long as he has a person to snug with and a blanket in which to burrow. Like I told him, he’s someone’s perfect dog, just not ours.

We’d been discussing bringing another dog into the house for several weeks. We spent hours surfing dog adoption sites looking for the right characteristics to complement the personality of our two year-old Min Pin/Pug mix Fiona. She needed a buddy, we thought. Someone to pal around with. We were sure Duke was the guy. 

We liked that he’s a little older than her. We thought his wisdom and subdued nature would influence her to relax a bit. We hoped that he had some good habits she could imitate.

For a few days, it looked like we were right. Duke is crate-trained and house-trained. He comes when he’s called. He’s sweet-natured to us, and he’s a cute boy. Come on. Just look at that face.

He and Fiona spent a couple days figuring out who was boss. Tension was high, but once the hierarchy was set and the queen assumed the throne, the electricity in the air tamped down some. The canine partnership wasn’t violent but it wasn’t perfect either. If I pet one dog, the other would come over to break up the fun. Fiona couldn’t get Duke to play with her much, no matter how hard she tried, and the frustration was written all over her wrinkled forehead. If Duke were on the couch with us, Fiona would lie on the floor and face the other direction. She didn’t like having an interloper in her home, and she disliked us for bringing him there. 

On a Saturday morning, I got the bright idea to take them on individual walks. I figured I could bond with one while Liz bonded with the other, then we’d trade. The plan was flawless. Until, that is, a leash was involved.

All our research told us to support the power dynamic the dogs created. Since Fiona is the alpha, she does everything first. We feed her first, we let her outside first, we pet her first. She’s the doggie boss and we treat her that way. These walks were no different; Fiona got to go first. As soon as I attached the leash to her harness Duke went ballistic. He barked at her and ran around our living room like a maniac. Frightened, Fiona started trotting around as if to say “Nothing to see here. Nope. Just a couple-a dogs having a normal day.” Duke started keeping pace with her, only snarling and nipping at her neck.

We chalked it up to nerves, but it was the first sign of Duke’s fracture from the rest of the pack.

When we traded dogs, Duke again barked and howled like a pup possessed. Once the hand off was made, he settled and we went on a pleasant early morning walk. We passed a park where a youth soccer team was practicing. We walked by kids swinging from jungle gyms and nervous parents standing vigil nearby. Runners went by us. We didn’t meet any dogs though, which was peculiar. We live in a dog-centric community. We’re talking about a neighborhood that allows pups in restaurants, where people set bowls of water on sidewalk corners. Yet that morning, we didn’t cross a single dog.

The evening of the walk, the four of us went to an event called the Furry Friends Festival. Dogs and their owners filled Cincinnati’s Washington Park for live music, craft beer, and summertime fun. It was a celebration of the kinship between man and dog, and exactly the kind of silly event we find irresistible.

We were especially excited because we’d picked up a “Y”-shaped leash extension from PetSmart, so the two dogs, brother and sister in our eyes, could trot around being cute together. We spent months envisioning this scene, and the dream was moments from coming true.

We unloaded them from the back of my SUV and hooked them together so they could walk side-by-side. A large dog passed us in the parking lot. This is where the night went haywire. Duke bucked and jumped and barked and spit and lunged and howled. There was too much distance between them for Duke to reach the other animal, but that didn’t stop him from trying. Like us, Fiona didn’t know what to do, so everyone kept walking toward the park hoping Duke’s fit would pass. It didn’t.

He repeated the same lunatic routine to every dog we encountered and began baring his fangs at Fiona. That led us to believe the “Y” leash was the culprit, so we split the dogs up; Liz took Fiona, and I took Duke. The closer we got to the park, the more intense he became. It was frightening. I felt like an embarrassed father trying to talk his son out of a tantrum in the middle of a Target, only my son comes from wolves and he might hurt me or someone else. What was especially odd is Duke directed none of his venom at people. When dog-less walkers passed, he’d quiet down and act friendly again. But as soon as one of his furry brothers entered the frame, a switch flipped.

A friend of ours was meeting us there. She hadn’t planned on going, but we convinced her to go. She strolled up with her two dogs just after I told Liz we needed to leave. Liz did the polite thing and explained our predicament to her friend while I tried to hang on to a twelve-pound hurricane. The conversation went on too long for me and I lost my cool and yelled at Liz that we had to go. Not my best moment.

We were quiet and humiliated on the ride home. We had no clue Duke could go primal like that, and it troubled us. We got the dogs inside and crated them. Then we did what any sensible people would do: We went out for margaritas.

We spent most of the night talking about he incident at the park and what it means and whether we could keep Duke knowing that we don’t know what he’s capable of doing to us, to Fiona, to our friend’s newborn, to anyone. I blamed us. I said we should have known better than to take him to an event like that so early. We wouldn’t have done that with Fiona, I reasoned.

The next day in church, we watched a video of a couple that adopts kids with illnesses and special needs. Seven children live in their home, and each one of them has a serious medical problem. The first kid they adopted wasn’t supposed to live longer than two weeks, but they brought him home anyway. The whole crowd went misty-eyed, me included. This video played over and over in my head as I contemplated what to do about Duke. With that family in mind, I stuck my neck out.

I made an impassioned plea to Liz that I didn’t want to be the kind of person who gives up, I didn’t want to be a coward. Duke is the way he is because people gave up on him, I told her. We’re better than that. And Liz hugged me and graciously agreed to keep the little guy.

We canceled his appointment for the temperament test we’d scheduled at the doggie day care where Fiona goes a couple times a week, but we vowed to bring him back when he was ready. We talked about paying for extensive training, the kind of 2-3 week program where the dog boards somewhere else and returns to you reprogrammed. We even took him to meet a trainer, an older guy who talks like Billy Bob Thornton’s character in Sling Blade. This trainer, Dave we’ll call him, has no use for punctuation. His sentences go on for days.

“You bring the dog here once a week for ten weeks I’ll train him down stay sit heel When the dog barks you give him a good correction with a choker that’s all he needs Some people are real namby-pamby about the correction and it never sticks You come in for the last few sessions tell me what’s going on and I’ll show ya how to fix it And I don’t believe in evolution but monkey see monkey do”

I’m sure I didn’t catch it all. We’d brought both dogs along, thinking Fiona could use some brushing up on her basic obedience training, and Dave took each dog for a test drive.

“This’n here,” he said, pointing to Fiona, “is a piece a cake The other’n is a bit challenged.”

Sadly, that made us feel relieved. The drive home from Dave the dog trainer’s was spent trying to invent reasons to keep Duke. But we knew we couldn’t. Even if we’d spent a good chunk of money training him, there were no guarantees: We still wouldn’t know what he might do. Plus, we adopted him thinking we’d bring more love and more happiness into our home, and that wasn’t the case. Everyone was anxious all the time, including Duke. Until he could be accepted at daycare, he had to be crated all but a few hours a day. That’s no kind of life for a dog.

By the time we pulled up the driveway, we had decided to give Duke back to the adoption agency. Guilt worked its black alchemy on us in the days that followed. I’d think about it and get choked up. Liz beat herself up pretty bad. Part of it is feeling like a failure. Part of it is knowing some awful things probably happened to Duke to make him this way. But I know in my heart that we aren’t the right people for him.

The program said they couldn’t take him back until today, so we did our best to give Duke a big send off weekend. He’s been on several walks and we’ve allowed him to sleep in our bed. (I draw the line at under the covers, but he tries.) Friday morning he came to the office with me, and yesterday he and Fiona took a dip in a doggie pool. We’re determined to send him out with a bang.

We’ve added Duke to our prayers. We hope he finds an older couple that can spend all day with him, snuggling up on a recliner and watching TV. He needs a pair of hands that have nothing better to do than rub his belly. He needs a homebody that is always ready to toss a blanket on him for a good game of “Ghost.” We just aren’t those people. I hope Duke forgives us for that. I hope we forgive us for that too.

Fiona’s Underbite

That adorable little girl above is my dog, Fiona. I cringe just writing that phrase. My dog. That’s like writing “my TV” or “my coffee table.” Calling her “my dog” reduces her to a possession. It cheapens her.

Any pet parent with a heart will tell you that when you bring a dog into your home it becomes a part of the family in about half an hour. A dog comes with furniture in the form of a bed and a crate. A dog has its own food and even its own dishes. Collars and leashes are the accessories of the canine world. Just like you and me, a dog needs entertainment, so a pet parent obliges with size-appropriate tennis balls and chew toys. Dogs have lives and routines of their own, and the moment you start adjusting yours to accommodate theirs your family gets bigger. The process is nothing short of magic.

Fiona became a part of our family because our gym shares a parking lot with a PetSmart. One Saturday afternoon, we noticed a lineup of dog cages and a crowd of people outside of the store. Sweaty and amped on endorphins, we walked over to do some window-shopping. There were big dogs, small dogs, old dogs, young dogs, spunky dogs, sleepy dogs, mutts, pure breeds, and everything in between. There must have been about two dozen dogs in attendance, hoping to make a good impression on someone who could give them a home, and each four-legged orphan was charming in his own way. That first Saturday, it was difficult to walk home empty-handed.

For a couple weeks, this became our Saturday morning routine. We would get up, eat a little something, go to the gym and burn some calories, then visit the dogs. We spent our rides home talking about our favorites and creating lists of dog names.

One Saturday, we got bold and asked one of the workers from the rescue shelter to walk an eight year-old beagle named Buster. Buster was a relaxed old man, and he didn’t shy away from us one iota. Don’t tell Fiona, but I wanted to adopt Buster. I figured an older dog would be low-maintenance—he was housebroken, not especially excitable, and good-tempered. However, we decided against it because we weren’t ready.

Until the next week.

The following Saturday, we were at PetSmart again. By this time, we ruled out larger dogs because out backyard is so small it didn’t feel right to us. We were looking at the small dogs when we came across this tiny little brown cutie, curled in a ball taking a snooze. Someone had put her in a gnarly black sweater with a skull sewn on it to protect her from the November chill. We had to take her on a walk.

The three of us strolled along the far side of the building, to a sidewalk along a busy street. Fiona, who the shelter had been calling Scarlett, was so frightened of the passing cars she would flinch as they drove by. Right then, we were hooked. This puppy needed us. There was another reason we couldn’t resist her little face, but more on that later.

After our walk, we handed her back and went inside the store to confer. We both agreed that she was the one, but still doubted our abilities as pet parents. As we waffled near the bedding, the lady in charge of the shelter approached us to gauge our interest in adoption. We told her it would be great if we could work out a rent-to-own deal; if we could keep her for a week or so and then decide. Wouldn’t you know it? They do that.

We paid our deposit for the week, but we might as well have adopted her right then. Once you give a dog a home, a bed, and a name she is yours. Three days later I called to make the adoption official.

Since then, I’ve done things with Fiona I could have never imagined doing with a dog.

I’ve dressed her up.

I’ve let her ride shotgun.

I’ve let her sleep in my bed.

I’ve even taken her to a baseball game.

At this point, I couldn’t imagine my life without Fiona. I miss her when she’s not around. I seek out dog events in the city. I think everything she does is precious, even the mundane things. Case in point: I have exactly 285 photos stored in my phone and 67 of them are pics of her sleeping. Sleeping. Even when she is literally doing nothing, she warms my heart.

This is not to say that Fiona is perfect. Most days, there is an hour when she can’t decide if she wants to be inside or outside. She’ll scratch at the back door to be let out, come back in after ten minutes, then repeats. It’s aggravating. She drags paper towels out of the trash from time to time and stares out the window and barks at the wind.

One time, she even did this:

Misbehaviors and all, I love her irrationally, as much because of her flaws as despite them.

One of Fiona’s flaws isn’t her fault. She’s allergic to damn near everything. She has an allergy to 16 trees. She is scratching all hours of the day. She’s on a science diet made of chicken and salmon that we have to special order. We have to pump medicine under her tongue twice a day.

Because of her various ailments, we spend an inordinate amount of time at the vet. The doctors there are all very compassionate and take great care of her. They are also very thorough and take good care of us. At the end of every visit, they give us a typed report about her visit and any medical issues that require treatment. I’m glad they do because when we are at the vet, I melt into a puddle of worry for my little girl, so I need something to remind me of what to do for Fiona after I get home.

At the end of every report—every single one—they include an entry that absolutely fires me up. It’s insulting, it’s dumbfounding, and it’s the other reason she caught our attention in the first place. Fiona has an underbite.

There are two reasons why this entry on her vet reports makes me so mad. One reason is because there is no medical danger to having an underbite. None. She eats just fine, she breathes just fine, and her underbite will in no way stop her from being a healthy dog. The suggestion to correct her teeth is completely cosmetic and completely unnecessary. I’m never having Fiona fit for braces. Not happening. Why would I? Is she going to be passed over for jobs because her teeth are a little out of whack? Will she not be asked to prom? Come on.

Secondly, and most importantly, that underbite gives her character, personality. That crooked little smile is distinct. They can look happy. They can look confused. They can look ornery. Those teeth make her who she is, even though the vet counts them as a flaw.

That’s the thing about flaws; they set us apart. They make us unique. Imperfections define us.

If I had to have all my shortcomings cast into my teeth at the end of every visit to the doc, it would probably read something like this:

Smokes too many cigarettes. Is too cavalier. Has one hip higher than the other. Uses humor as defense mechanism. Abs are a bit flabby. Indecisive. Cares too much about sports.

The list could go on, but that’s honest enough. Frankly, even if I were reminded of these flaws as often as I am about Fiona’s underbite, I wouldn’t give a damn because when you add up all those imperfections you get a person. Not an ideal one, but one worth knowing.

As for Fiona, well, that underbite will never be corrected. Her teeth might be crooked, but her spirit is all square. That’s all I need in a family member.