#15 PUPPY REPORT - We All Make Mistakes
How to begin this post . . . I wondered.
However, thanks to a package delivery, an idea coalesced—beginning with a confession. I made a mistake. There—a theme. You may have read recently about a woman in Boston who ordered ten bananas on-line and received ten bunches of bananas. Well . . .
I’m reading a book about tragic mistakes in justice, yesterday, I watched The Metropolitan Opera’s “Madam Butterfly,” and, oh, the mistakes belonging to that beautiful story; and yesterday, I received a huge cardboard box from Amazon. THAT had to be a mistake. But the mistake was mine. All mine. A matter of measuring.
I had ordered a baking “peel.” A broad wooden implement designed to move ready-for-the-oven rounds of sourdough into a hot oven (so hot, that occasionally when I open the oven door to ‘pop’ it in, the fire alarm fires off). The point is, I ordered a small wooden peel and received the one you see here—one perfect for use in a commercial pizza kitchen. The handle alone on the one I received is longer than my kitchen is wide. Once the picture was taken, the heavy peel was returned to its box and will be shipped back to the sender. Admittedly, I made a mistake.
A Breadmaker’s Peel
Even without his permission, I mean to tell you that on April 17th, Scooter Sublime made a major mistake when he shoved himself and a pair of my sneaker socks under the sofa—his usual course of play—only this time, when I happily commanded and repeated, “Release,” and he didn’t, I Reached for the socks. Scooter reached for my hand, and with a series of sharp snarls and one serious snap, he caught my hand handily enough to draw blood. That was a very real mistake.
Not a single slice of Sublime coursed through either our bodies as I dragged out the peccant pup by neck’s scruff, flattened his resisting body to the floor, and roughly refreshed the notion of hierarchy through a severe scolding. I owned the socks, snarling, “Leave it!” “Mine!” before sending him off to isolation for a good while. It wasn’t pretty, this encounter; one I’d rather not admit, but it was a teachable moment. When, after his “timeout,” Scooter Subdued slowly walked to me and bestowed a soft lick on my bare foot, I was reminded that, “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”
It would be a very real mistake if I told only this story of Scooter Sublime’s dark side. Within a week, our boy will complete his eighth month of development. He is a delightful size, his shoulder standing nearly at the height of my knee, and weighing in at manageable twenty pounds. His coat remains a stringy concoction of apricot jam stirred into sugar-cookie dough. He’s got months to go before his adult coat decides to settle. His teeth are beautiful; and had he not destroyed his fancy, double-sided dog toothbrush, the polishing job would take half the time it now takes. It was my mistake, leaving the toothbrush where he could claim it. But we all make mistakes.
Those were stories on my mind when, moments ago, my husband and Scooter returned from a walk; when with his usual enthusiasm, Scooter began his floor-plan search for me, aiming for the boisterous reunions we share no matter how brief our separations. I was in my office, but he hadn’t notice. He flew by the office door, flew through the living room, and flew through the screen door onto the patio, meaning to see if I was there. I wasn’t.
Yes, that’s what I meant to say.
On this warm, springtime Sunday, Scooter flew through the sliding screen door that allows breezes in and keeps bugs out. It was a mistake, of course. When he sleeps, he sleeps hard, but awake, he moves at Mach-1 in his most relaxed forward movement. I’m not sure of his speed when he creamed the screen and its frame, but I am sure that until social distancing ends, allowing a repairman to call, we will enjoy breezes through windows. Mistakes are made. Measuring their impact matters.
“Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”
