Boys,
Your mom is a very practical and get-things-done kind of girl. She’s also a sage-the-house-to-cleanse-the-energy kind of girl. Sometimes, she’s a I-need-you-to-pick-up-this-kitchen-table-from-a-dark-alley-on-campus kind of girl. Yesterday, she was a there’s-a-difference-between-leaving-the-burner-on-and-losing-track-of-time-and-nearly-burning-down-the-house-because-I-left-the-burrito-on-the-stove kind of girl.
She keeps us guessing and we love her for it.
Your mom isn’t afraid to go against the grain and do things her way. This has brought her a lot of success because she understands how to apply things she learns into practical applications. She might not know everything about history, but she knows what she knows and, more importantly, she knows how to get the most out of what she’s got.
The trouble creeps in when she doesn’t know something. Specifically, when she knows something is wrong, but doesn’t know what.
About a week or two before we went to Disney (shout out, Slinky Dog!), Oakley yelped when she was outside and running in. There was a lot of snow on the ground and it was so cold, the snow was frozen and she was basically out there trying to do her business on uneven ice. This wasn’t the first time this had happened, however, but it’s something we’ve been told is just something she’s going to have to deal with because of weak hips and unique knees.
When she hurts herself, she doesn’t put any pressure on her back leg. She’s hurt both, so sometimes it’s her right, and other times it’s her left. After a few days of not really putting weight on it, we took her in to the vet. They looked at her and told us the same thing they always do despite us telling them this time was different.
I think about if it were me. If I hurt myself as often as she seems to, then I’d probably be pretty sad. Oakley must also feel this way because after this last injury, she went into some sort of depression. It probably didn’t help that we had suitcases out for days, amplifying the anxiety, then we left her for a week to go to Disney.
So we get back, and she’s just Sadness from Inside Out. Her white fur turned blue, and her head just hangs and bobs back and forth while she goes from this dark corner of the house to the next.
We take her to another vet and he quickly sees that she has some issue with her knees where they pop in and out of place all the time, which causes pain. He says it’s a super simple surgery, so we schedule it and now just have to put up with her mopeyness until she gets through recovery, then she’ll be her happy self all over again.
But what if she doesn’t?
The prospect of never having Oakley return to her book-eating, sock-stealing, shut-the-doors-unless-you-want-your-stuff-eaten self was too much for your mom to handle, so she did the only thing that makes total sense to any rational person and schedule an appointment with a dog psychic.
Her first mistake was telling our friend group. See if it’s just the four of us, I have a hard time giving your mom crap for doing silly things. I’m not going to lean into the fact that she isn’t 100% sure when WW2 happened, but if our friends are around, then the gloves come off! It’s like that with everyone, not just your mom.
“I scheduled her an appointment with a dog psychic,” she said. And I’m not going to tell you how much it cost.”
“I’m sorry. A what?”
“A dog psychic.”
“I’m a dog psychic. I sense a longing for affection and a yearning for expensive meat.”
“Don’t be an asshole.”
Fair. But also… I mean.
The cookie really crumbled when, within our group chat, she revealed that the dog psychic would NOT be coming to our house to psychic her, rather she would do it via zoom.
It was like the teacher said Friday was pizza day, and everyone wanted to be a part of that call. We wouldn’t be in shot, but we wanted to be off camera and listening to how a dog psychic was going to break down Oakley’s plight in life.
Here’s how I thought it would go:
Psychic (obviously wearing some sort of large headdress with a prop crystal ball in shot): Tell me about the animal.
Mom: Well she hurt her leg and then she got depressed and now she just lays in the laundry room or up in our room behind a chair all day. She won’t eat. She won’t go outside. The energy in the house is terrible!
Psychic: Yes, that is what I am sensing as well. Allow me to look at Oak Tree.
Mom: It’s Oakley.
Psychic: Yes of course. Show me to Oakley.
Mom: (moves phone to put Oakley in view)
Psychic: Uh-huh. Mmmhmm. Very interesting. Very interesting indeed.
Oakley: 👀
Psychic: You don’t say! I’ve heard enough! This dog is suffering from depression due to continuous injury! She must be healed and made to feel loved at once!
Sometimes truth is better than fiction.
Your mom has a certain look when she gets caught. By that, I mean caught in the kind of way a kid gets caught eating a second cookie. It’s like a, “I’m not doing anything wrong, but I don’t want you to know what I’m doing” kind of caught.
I walk in from work the other day and she’s talking to someone from the living room. “Probably her mom or Kristen” I think as I round the corner and see that she’s got her laptop open. She gives me the caught look, and I instantly know who she’s talking to. The dog psychic!
As I came in, Oakley was in the laundry room. I round the corner and she starts to explain herself, but I cut her off with an “I know who it is.” She then says something about needing to go somewhere else (mmmhmmm) and she takes the computer charger and computer with her and heads toward the laundry room, all the while giving me a “don’t follow me” kind of look.
She goes into the laundry room to be with Oakley and shuts the door.
Inventory check: kids are still at school. Wife, complete with laptop, charger, and depressed dog, are huddled into the laundry room with shoes all over the place trying to suss out the nature of her depression, and I’m just wondering how my life got me to here…
I’m not home for long, but now it’s time to go get Koen from school. Unfortunately, my keys are in the laundry room. So I crack the door and lean in with a “don’t mean to throw off the cosmos” kind of intention to grab my keys from the key ring. I see her laptop and charger sitting on the counter, and we’ve progressed to phone. I mean, obvious better for reading energy compared to a computer, am I right or what?
“Shit. My shoes are in there too,” I think as I again crack the door and just reach an arm in to grab my shoes. I’m pretty sure if she hasn’t thought it already, Oakley was probably ready to schedule us a human psychic appointment.
When Koen and I get home, psychic session has ended. There is some chatter between Reags, Koen, and “what are we doing tonight” kind of things. Naturally, I needed to know what we found out so I had to squash that talk and ask your mom, “so what did we learn about Oakley?”
“Long story short, “Basically,” your mom says. “she’s not hurt.”
“Phew,” I think. I mean, those yelps that are happening every other time she goes to the bathroom say otherwise, but glad to know she’s not really hurt, just faking it for some reason.
“She’s not really hurt, but she’s sad because she can’t protect the family and she feels like she doesn’t have a place in our family.”
“I see,” I say.
“So we need to give her lots of love and show her that we value her as a member of the family.”
Later that day or maybe the day after, Oakley starts barking at some dog walking down the sidewalk, and you would have thought she just fought off eight intruders by the way we reacted. Normally, I’m kind of an “Oakley! Lets let people and dogs walking down the sidewalk get a pass. No one likes the eternally barking dog house!”
However, this time it was more of a “GOOD GIRRRRRLLLLLL! THANK YOU FOR KEEPING US SAFE, OAKLEY! WHAT A GOOD GIRL! SHE’S A GOOD GIRLLLLL!!!”
Again, how did my life take me to here? Tell 17 year old me that 23 years later I’d be baby-voicing my dog and encouraging her for barking at another dog just minding his own business walking on the FAR SIDEWALK not looking for trouble in the slightest.
Anyway, these are those dumb moments that you probably won’t remember. But you will remember Oakley when she turns into an old white biddy, and just know that she was a young white biddy at one point in her life getting cheered by two people who were taking dog advice from someone who zoom-psychic’d a dog trapped in the laundry room with her owner.
🤷🏻♂️
Love,
Dad
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