What is on your calendar?

It was a lazy Saturday morning and I had gotten up early to make a family breakfast since it is unusual that we did not have a hectic schedule ahead of us. As we were all gathered at the table enjoying what does not happen often anymore, we were promptly interrupted.

I knew it was going to happen. I should have narrated out loud at the moment but I didn’t. Our older larger golden retriever was eating in the laundry room as usual. I heard the click, click, click of the beagle’s nails headed down that hallway. I knew what was about to happen. This beagle is completely motivated by food. She is more than obese and feels entitled to any food at any time. A while back we had had an incident that my daughter dropped a small piece of crust from her toast on the kitchen floor. Both dogs lunged for it. When the older male golden retrieved it, the younger female beagle flipped out. She snarled and snapped at him. He promptly placed her entire head in his mouth. This ended badly. We had to go to the Emergency Veterinary Clinic, she stayed several nights, and yada, yada ,yada…we picked her up and paid for it – CHA CHING!

So as I sat there eating my breakfast enjoying a quiet morning with my family and I heard that beagle waddle down that hallway – I knew. She tried to slip in under his legs from behind and eat his food. When the golden did not acquiess and give way to her she barked at him authoritatively. Needless to say, this did not go over well and the golden retriever (you guessed it) proceeded to eat her head again.

Based on our prior experience we knew that this was going to be ugly. I called the vet and made the appointment. My husband returned with the beagle and a pouch of antibiotics. It didn’t appear to need stitches or irrigating this time. The puncture was directly on the top of her head. We began to administer the drugs.

Upon waking on our Sunday morning, the beagle seemed less than pleased. But I figured the antibiotics were probably not agreeing with her and that she was feeling the after effects of the golden’s anger. We went to church.

We returned from church and due to the fact that I had nothing planned for the remainder of that day and the calendar remained empty for the next day as well I decided to reach out to help my daughter reconnect with a friend from church. She was unable to get together that day so we made arrangements for the next day. Since I had nothing on my schedule, I left all arrangements at the comfort of the other mother as she had just had a baby a few weeks prior.

We remembered that my son had to pick up his football equipment later in the afternoon. As we watched an afternoon movie we were interrupted with a weather statement about thunderstorms and tornado warnings. My husband made the executive decision that we would leave promptly to beat the storm. I argued vehemently that we wait til after the storm but he was insisted so Son #3, my daughter , my husband and myself all piled into our SUV and left.

The storm hit moments after we arrived at the park. My daughter and I sat in the truck and watched the power of the storm sweep across the fields. The winds were incredible and the rain came down in buckets. The lightning was fierce and the thunder roared. It was a classic late afternoon mid summertime storm in Maryland.

As we returned home, we found the neighbor’s cherry tree laying across our driveway where the Denali would have been had we not gone to the football equipment pick up (and don’t think I didn’t hear about that repeatedly) and layed about a foot from my soft top BMW. We looked further into the backyard and found another tree – this one a maple laying across my patio, patio furniture and grill with the root ball completely lifted up out of the ground about 6-7 feet.

I was stunned. My husband and I jumped into the truck to drive around the neighborhood and assess any other damage. Naturally, in our community of 1500 homes, we were the only house to have any damage. In fact we weren’t blessed with one tree but two! Our open agenda was filling in.

The next morning I woke up early to finish cleaning up the aftermath of the patio tree. My parents had come over the night before and helped clear the maple tree away. I knew that my daughter would be having her friend to play today and I wanted to make the backyard conducive to playing again. After working outside for a couple of hours, I came in to find Son #2 holding the beagle.

She was clearly very ill. Her head was swollen beyond recognition. Her eyes were essentially slits and the top of her head and her snout were almost level. This couldn’t be good. We made the vet appointment for 11:00 am.

While washing my hands from the outdoor work, my eldest son comes into the room.

“Mom would it be okay if I went to Six Flags with a friend on Wednesday?”
“You have your sports physical for football on Wednesday.”
“Oh…”
Brief silent pause.
“Do you think you could change it?”
“I’ll see what I can do…”

I pick up the phone and call the pediatrician. She doesn’t have anything available other than this afternoon at 1:30. I take the appointment.

Soon after making the arrangements (and prior to ever taking a shower) the mother of the child that I invited to my home that I told I had nothing going on and that she could do whatever worked for her, was calling to make arrangements. She would drop her daughter off around 11.

She pulls into my driveway with the neighbor’s tree lying across it. We chit chat and she drops off her daughter. We leave the pick-up time open ended as she had some other plans with another of her children.

My husband takes the beagle to the vet with Son #2 as I would be supervising the playdate that I scheduled. He returns to tell me that they had to drain the beagle’s wound and gave her more medications. We are instructed to do warm compresses on her head every couple of hours and continue her 3 medications every 12 hours.

My husband stays to supervise the playdate while I leave to take Son #1 to his physical. I am at the doctor’s office for 2 hours. After leaving, Son #1 asks to be dropped at a friend’s house. While I am gone, the mother returned to pick up her daughter from the playdate.

After I get home, I begin to give compresses to the beagle and her oozing noggin. Son #3 has his first night of football practice later that evening that my husband will take him to. I make dinner while he is gone. When they return we eat dinner at roughly 8:30 pm.

After dinner is cleaned up, I perform more compresses. Give medication in American cheese balls. As I head upstairs, I check the tree still lying in the driveway waiting for the neighbors to acknowledge that it is there.

As I get ready for bed it dawns on me…

I never had a shower. Imagine that. I forgot to take a shower with absolutely nothing on the calendar for two whole days.