Topic 195: The Monotony of Being Good

Carol:

  Shooting the Breeze

Our pack of dogs and their walkers met this morning for our usual Friday coffee chat at Marilyn and Lou’s house up the road.  When it’s warm, we sit outside while the dogs roam around the almost two acres of fenced land.  We spend the hour of sipping and socializing before heading off to work or chores or whatever--relaxed, enjoying both the gentle breeze and the meandering conversation.  Still, all are keeping an eye on the whereabouts of their various animals.
 

Koda, who lives here, rarely leaves the patio.  She appears to be bored with anything that doesn’t lead directly to food. She doesn’t play with the other dogs, she doesn’t poke around. She does sit beside the person most likely to drop a crumb or give in to her sad eyes by pulling out a dog treat, which is usually me. She is so quiet most of the time that we forget she is there. Good doggie.
 

Milo takes off in full throttle and covers  the whole yard, jumping over walls and poking under bushes. Sometimes we see the tip of his tail whiz by or track his direction by the scatter of birds.  Eventually he works his way back to the patio and sits at full attention if there is food on the table, hoping for a reward for his good posture and self-control.  He would never lunge at the plate of cookies, he would never leap up to grab food out of someone’s hand. He does, however, poke his nose into a pocket if he smells crumbs from a doggie treat. His behavior would be monotonous if it weren’t for those infrequent times when quiet presages trouble. Like the day he tipped over Koda’s food container and ate enough kibble for a week. Good doggie (mostly).
 

Bella is also predictable, not by the monotony of her behavior but by her absolute lack of predictability.  So far, she has been tentative about exploring the open spaces of Marilyn’s yard. Sometimes she will watch for evidence of Milo, a quick view of his tail through a bush or a flash of striped coat flying by in the distance. Sometimes, she will stop, frozen into a pose that betrays her German Shorthair DNA.   This morning she completely ignores the large dog bowl of water, instead jumping up to hook her paws over the cement lip of the bird bath to drink from the deeper pool of water.  She eventually settles down under the patio table, still licking the crumbs from the cookie she grabbed off the table.   We are using “off” and “no” a lot these days with Bella. Bad puppy (mostly).
 

Today we are joined by another neighbor and an extra dog is added to the mix,  Spirit, a 10-year old with beautiful long pristine white fur. He is quite patient as Bella takes a playful lunge and even indulges her with a few enthusiastic laps around the patio. He doesn’t beg, doesn’t bark, doesn’t lunge, well, isn’t he just about perfect. The kind of monotonous good behavior that parents of young pets and young people are grateful for.  Good doggie.
 

The hour is up, chairs are pushed back, cups retrieved, leashes snapped on collars. Bella, come. Milo, come. Where’s Spirit? The monotonously good, the beautifully white, long haired majestic animal is in the flower bed behind a bush, behind the flowing water sprinkler, barely visible behind the flying dirt from the hole he is digging with muddy black paws.
 

So much for the monotony of being good.

  

Megan:

The Monotony of (Writing About) Being Good

Yesterday I took my grandmother to Walmart, and while she was shopping, I wandered around the store. I hadn’t eaten lunch and I stood in the snack aisle for  a long time trying to convince myself that Cheeze-its were vegan because the cheese was probably all chemicals anyway. I didn’t actually read the label, I just stared at the front of the box. I put some Wheat Thins in my cart, and took them out again.  Then I picked up a small container of fresh fruit from the produce section and ate that while I waited for Grandma to finish.

Eating healthy is only a problem if I get hungry while running errands. After I dropped my grandma off at her house, I went to my favorite coffee shop because I had time to kill before I picked up my mother (I’m the family chauffer). I was so proud for not eating the crackers that I rewarded myself with an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. It was probably not a vegan cookie, but I didn’t beat myself up over it because one cookie is better than (or at least not as bad as) an entire box of crackers.

I just reread those two paragraphs and nearly died of boredom. At least I’m on topic. I didn’t intend to be one of those bloggers – who writes about weight loss and diets and the silly things dogs do (which reminds me: on this morning’s walk, Bella tried to eat 2 birds, 1 mouse, and 1 rabbit leg – all dead before she got to them). And it’s not that I have a problem with people who write about those topics; most of the blogs I read cover the same issues. I just didn’t want that for myself, because it’s not particularly interesting (except for cataloging Bella’s dead animal collection).

The most exciting anecdotes and stories often involve dangerous excess, errors in judgment and unfamiliar environments. I have plenty of those stories in my past. As I get older though, it’s harder for me to remember why I thought that was fun. Young people take stupid risks with themselves without considering consequences. I never got in any trouble, but that was luck. Not all of my friends escaped their youth unscathed. We had some great times, but right now I think I would rather have a good life than an exciting life. And perhaps that means I will have to seek inspiration for my stories from my imagination rather than my good but boring life.