Possessed by the Grinch

Dude! What the frag!

So we went to the Williamstown Reindog Parade the other day with Clarabelle. It’s this holiday parade involving a drummer, the local riding clubs, and every dog they can find and dress up as a reindeer. For the first time, we have a dog that’s friendly enough with other dogs to participate, so we got creative on how to make Clarabelle look even more adorable. We dolled up her doggie coat adorably, with little green Christmas tree ornaments all around the edges and red garland looped back and forth across her back, and a tiny mouse dressed as an elf pinned on in the position of a rider. Adorable. But the whole arrangement was pretty flimsy – nothing was bolted on, and every time she rubbed up against something, the ornaments on the fringes would come off. So we decided to take her to the gathering place where the parade was to begin, and wait until the parade started to put it on her.

Turns out, though, the judging all happens while the dogs are standing around waiting for the parade to start. Which nobody told us. So while we were standing there, some person or other was quietly ignoring us because our dog wasn’t dressed up. Just before the parade was to begin, they arranged us all for a photograph on the steps of one of the buildings on the Williams campus, and before the photo, said they were going to announce the winners. “What?!”, I thought. “Winners? We haven’t started yet!”

When T heard that this was happening, she said to me, in a quietly nervous sort of stammer, “It’s OK if we don’t win, isn’t it?” “Of course,” I told her. “And besides, they didn’t even get to see Clarabelle in her outfit. So if we don’t win, it’s only because nobody saw her.” This didn’t calm her, and in fact seemed to make her look a little more upset. So I tried to change the subject.

We had two leashes on Clarabelle, originally so that the kids could walk her on the parade route. But between trying to keep her outfit mostly together by keeping her away from other dogs and people, and fighting through Clarabelle’s constant lunging toward every other dog there was so she could sniff them, the kids just weren’t up to it. She jerked T off her feet during the build-up to the parade, and left Q the dust by jerking the leash completely out of his hands on another occasion. It became clear that an adult would have to hold her. But T had the small leash, and I had the big one, and we marched the whole length of the parade route together.

Toward the middle I cut out the middle man and just grabbed the choke collar, or very close to it, and kept such a death grip on it that she was honking hoarsely much of the time. But what else could I do? She was one giant surge of energy trying to get to and wrestle every dog she saw. And there were hundreds of them, it seemed. T stood quietly with her end of the leash, and at one point actually said, “Dad, I think I can take it from here, she really doesn’t seem to be pulling very hard.” “Well, no, to you, she doesn’t,” I said. “Because my left arm is constantly holding her up off the ground.” It was exhausting.

And the streets were PACKED!, people crowding in everywhere, on both sides, waving at us and grinning, some of them unaware, having not seen us in a while, that we had a new dog. And I’m sorry to report that I was not especially festive as we paraded down the street to celebrate the Holiday That Must Not Be Named. I was exhausted from holding the dog in the air and out away from my side, I was embarrassed by the constant rain of green Christmas tree ornaments we were leaving in my wake, frustrated at having avoided Clarabelle even being considered in the whole goofball contest in the first place, and tired and cold from the long wait and the longer march. I think I had a pained grimace on my face the entire time. T had fun, waving to her friends, and I guess that’s mostly what it’s about, in the end. But boy, it was a long walk.

Once it ended, I stood and pitched all the accoutrements of Clarabelle’s outfit into the garbage can, and then began the long march back to the car. Janneke and T went to see Q perform with the fifth grade band at Images Cinema; I was to take Clarabelle home and then return, hopefully in time to see Q honk his way through a few numbers. But once I’d made the trip back across town to the car, I realized I had no keys. So I marched back to Images, got the keys, and then trudged back to the car again. It’s a good half mile, this little trip that I was doing, between Images and the car. So when I finally did wind up at home, I sat myself down and had a damn bowl of cereal before heading out again.

The event had ended at Images, but Q found me and told me that Janneke and T had gone to Thompson’s Chapel to hear Brad’s choir perform in Lessons and Carols. So we went there for the 4:00 show. The music was lovely, but to be honest, I don’t get this whole idea of sitting in a church, doing church-like stuff (listening to readings, singing, more readings, more singing, a sermon, more readings, more singing, etc), without it actually being a church service. I felt like I was nine years old again, pulling my hair our, waiting for it to end so I could go home. The kids, meanwhile, were just as frustrated – though Q sang the carols and seemed to enjoy at least parts of it.

My patience wasn’t the thickest, either, since I had been up at 4:30 that morning to go hunting. Sat in the woods until 8:00, saw nothing, came home. Story of my sporting life. But now it was 5:20 PM, and I was falling asleep in the pew there. As with most things, I wish I could have done better…Just wasn’t to be.

I’ll try to get some more updates on here soon, but this one took me half an hour to write, and I’m bushed. It’ll probably be a while, honestly. Not that there’s a lack of stuff to write about – bought a car, burnt the pumpkin bread, saw a red fox. Lots of thrilling adventure to relate. Just no time. Take care, brush your hair…