i found this on another blog and decided to have the dogblog rated. i was quite surprised not to get a G for family audiences.
Read Part One here.
Where does a dog go in the middle of night, when the world is frozen, when everything is coated in snow and ice and it's 30 degrees below zero? What is there to sniff, or to scrounge, or to eat? Why oh why did toby run off? And why oh why hadn't I kept him on the leash?
if you've never experienced thirty below--or twenty below, or ten below--here's what it feels like:
your nostril hairs freeze. the snow is so hard-packed and dry it squeaks under your feet. any bit of skin--face, neck, the little space of wrist between the end of your coat sleeve and the top of your glove--aches immediately when the air hits. after not too long a time, no matter what boots you are wearing, you cannot feel your toes; you walk flat-footed. your glasses freeze on your head; it aches worse than an ice-cream headache.
i pulled on my carhartts and my wool cap and my sorel boots and my gloves and climbed in my frozen car. the neighborhood was absolutely silent; there was nobody else around. my little house had no garage, and i had to scrape frost off the windshield and let the car warm up before i could go look for Toby. damn that dog. damn that runaway dog.
my breath frosted up the inside of the windshield. the steering wheel was so cold my hands ached to grip it. i drove slowly around the icy hilly streets of my neighborhood. i did not find my dog. i did not find anyone.
i was shivering when i got home. it was after 9:30 p.m. i coudln't go to bed--what if toby came back and i was asleep? he'd be outside all night; he could die. i hauled my blankets and pillow out to the couch and curled up there. i watched TV as long as i could stay awake, popping up every few minutes at every imagined noise to poke my head outside to see if toby had come back. each time, the blast of cold air hit me as i walked out onto the enclosed porch, and my hand nearly stuck to the porch door, the metal was so cold.
and each time, no toby.
i pictured him frozen in an alley. i pictured him with his paw pads frostbitten; sometimes he got painful ice balls between the pads. the first time this happened, when he was just a puppy, he slid all the way across the kitchen floor; the ice balls were like those little wheeled-tennis-shoes that little kids sometimes wear.
and i kept picturing him wandering around the outside of the house, trying to get in. it was that picture that sent me back to the front door again and again, and then to the back door.
no toby.
i finally fell asleep in a little heap on the couch. i don't know what woke me--a sound, maybe, or a thought wave, or just my own restless mind. but some time past midnight, i got up again and opened the front door. and there was toby. he was not frozen, and nor was he frostbitten. he looked not the least bit wistful. he was sniffing something in the snow by the front step and when the door opened he looked up suddenly, surprised. his eyes said, what are you doing up so late, mom? if he'd been wearing a little doggie james dean-leather jacket and smoking little doggie cigarettes i wouldn't have been surprised.
get in here! i said.
like any teenager, toby had to delay. he took one more sniff or two of whatever it was that he was sniffing (all i could see was snow), and then he nonchalantly leaped up the stairs and into the living room.
i hauled the blankets and pillow back into the bedroom, and toby and i curled up on my mattress on the floor. he huddled next to me for warmth; despite his nonchalance, he was cold.
i fell instantly asleep. some time later i awoke to the sound of him eating--that crunch-crunch-crunch in the middle of the night that always made me feel so secure. my dog is home, and all is right with the world.
TO BE CONTINUED
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