Personal Asides: The Blessed Virgin Statue on the Lawn and--…Call Me, Harold!…A Day in the Life of MacTavish J. Puppy, Esq.

Blessed.

Sign of political cynicism: either that or somebody who lives on the corner of Oakton and Cumberland in Park Ridge is terribly mixed up. The modest house has a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the lawn—blue mantle, beatific painted blue eyes raised to heaven. Surrounding it are three signs touting Dan Kotowski for the State Senate, probably the number one fraud in the lists this season: virulent pro-abort, duplicitous, running on a good Polish name which leads one to think he embraces so-called traditional family values. He’s an enthusiastic pro-abort in whose behalf his money-siphon, Personal PAC has just performed an indisputable service to link voter confusion to his kite so he can get elected.

Family PAC just sent out a mailing to the northwest suburban district saying that State Representative Rosemary Mulligan and Kotowski are pro-choice teammates. Teammates they may be on the issue of life and death…fore-square on the side of pre-natal death…but Rosemary Mulligan is a Republican—or is supposed to be. In the meantime, somebody should tell the owners of the house at Cumberland and Oakton to get rid of the Blessed Virgin statue against which sacrilege is committed by linkage of blessedness with this four-star lefty.

Call Me, Harold!

The Republican Senate Campaign Committee went around the bend this time by authorizing a commercial that with no basis whatsoever portends that U. S. Congressman Harold Ford of Tennessee is a womanizer. Ford is bachelor and a nice-looking guy who at the age of 36 is running for the U. S. Senate. The TV missive spreads a lot of baseless garbage around about how Ford is a high-roller based on the fact that he went to a Playboy party one time in his life. The TV shot winds up with a beautiful white model with bare shoulders crooking her finger and saying, “Call me, Harold!” Ford is an African American.



The TV spot was designed by one who is clearly Machiavellian in that it causes trouble in at least three areas in Tennessee. First, it implies that Ford is a skirt chaser; second, it seeks to antagonize those remaining rural voters who take umbrage at interracial dating; third it seeks to alienate black women who are strung out that a good number of black men are dating white women rather than them. As a piece of work it is utterly without value, salacious and undeserving of screening. As a wicked Machiavellian gesture it is unprincipled and unrivaled.

More About MacTavish J. Puppy.

I forgot to tell you that MacTavish J. Puppy, age 15, is nearly blind with cataracts. It is possible to remove cataracts from a dog but you have to use anesthesia, of course, and his principal internist says that for somebody that old, use of anesthesia is inadvisable—in that he may fall into slumber and not wake up. For that reason, the usual treatment of teeth-cleaning for MacTavish J. Puppy must be suspended for anesthesia would have to be used. Having yellowed teeth does not bother him for, were he a worrier which he isn’t, he has worse things to worry about including blindness.

But he can distinguish brightness from dark and gets around pretty well. His central ailment, it is now deduced, is not a stroke which enables him to walk on the bias but evidently an imperfection in his inner ear. So now he hobbles on the bias…hobbling from arthritis…feels his way around the house he knows so well by instinct and has snapped back about 85% to his old self. His routine is perfect for an aged person. Awake at 7:30 a.m. where he follows his Mistress to the kitchen (so far, I’m with him). I am the dispenser of doggy treats and I insist he bark for them in order to show his willingness to be fed. He barks fervently, his tail wagging almost off. At about 8:15 a.m. he gets his last treat and his Mistress and I are off to morning Mass whereupon Puppy, sinless so he does not have to worry about prayer or ministerial reflections takes his first morning nap. It is a light one, the first of the day.

When we return at about 9:15 a.m. he arises from his place of slumber under the kitchen table and demands more treats. He gets them. He is so old that rather than tossing them on the floor for him to get…where he finds it difficult to see them…I place them tenderly in his mouth, careful to withdraw my fingers so as not to get them snapped off inadvertently by MacTavish J. Puppy who is not selective about what he bites. He clocks another nap under the table while we have breakfast. At 10 a.m. or so he moves to the dining room for his brief mid-morning nap. He then follows his Mistress on her tour of the house and while she makes the beds he indulges in a late morning nap. He loves to lie on bed clothes that have fallen from the bed but endures the discomfiture of being shagged off them—but he enjoys it nevertheless.

While she attends to other household duties he lies on the floor with his black nose on his paws, his sightless eyes attempting to discern where she is. While lunch is being prepared he is at his usual station under the kitchen table for his late morning nap, only now he is lying on his back for a sensuously rewarding deep sleep. He rolls over to a position where his head is above his paws while we eat lunch, stationed near my chair where, with luck, some particles of food from a sloppy eater are dropped.

The afternoon has two rewarding adventures. One is the anticipation of the afternoon car ride. He starts moving around at about 2, putting himself underfoot so that his Mistress knows he’s about. When she opens a drawer and get out the doggy leash, he is atwitter—as if this were the first time ever for a car ride. When he gets in the back seat of the car, he settles down for a nap. Why, you say, a nap when riding in a car is so exciting? My theory is that the gentle rocking of the car reminds him of his pre-natal days when he was carried gently as an unborn, safe and secure, inside his mother.

The second is the arrival of the mailman. MacTavish J. Puppy’s hearing is likewise not so good but he responds with excitement to the word “mailman” because he is ready to play a game. The game is this: he pretends that the mailman attempts every day to get into MacTavish J. Puppy’s house through the mail-slot. It is up to MacTavish J. Puppy, as inheritor of the valiant species of dog-dom to defend his house against the mailman whom he is sure intends to intrude on us by squeezing through the mail slot. MacTavish J. Puppy won’t stand for that nonsense for an instant. Thereupon he stations himself expectantly at the door near the mail-slot. To tell the truth, sometimes MacTavish J. Puppy falls asleep in that position and has been known to miss the mailman’s attempted forced entry altogether but this is rare and we don’t dwell on those failures. That is a secret between us that we don’t share with anyone. Usually, he is ready for the mailman.

The mailman used to push the mail through the slot whereupon MacTavish J. Puppy grabbed the packet of letters, bills and newspapers and gave it a good shaking, wheeling his white furry head angrily, sending bits and pieces of paper flying everywhere—growing ferociously all the time. This made it terribly hard for the Mistress to pay the bills so we encouraged the mailman to drop the packet between the screen door and the main door. When he opens the screen door, MacTavish J. Puppy is ready for him and emits a series of loud barks and growls. When he feels like it and his hind legs can take it, he tries to half-stand up to the mail slot and snap, with black lips bared, at the slot even though no mail or mailman is coming through. Then the mailman leaves and MacTavish J. Puppy, exhilarated by the victory of driving the mailman away, rewards himself with an early afternoon nap, fortified by the belief that for yet another day invasion has been stymied. I have been known to praise him excessively for his defense of us.

When MacTavish J. Puppy was ill…so ill in fact that we thought he had a stroke…he was too preoccupied with trying to recover to care about the mailman—but it was clear that he yearned for the excitement of stymieing his invasion. So someone in this house would pick up MacTavish J. Puppy and carry him to the door before the mailman would arrive. When he did, Puppy would summon a weak growl and move his paws to and fro defiantly. Someone in this house was even known to hold Puppy close and open the door so he could see his adversary, the mailman. Thereupon MacTavish J. Puppy would grow excited, allow his black lips to part and make a weak snarl. The mailman, in on the game, would then pretend to run down the sidewalk in fear while MacTavish J. Puppy would train his sightless eyes on this member of the household for reaffirmation that he was up to his job—which he was assured he was.

Now that the mail gets delivered in a packet between the two doors, occasionally a member of this household will open the main door and hand the packet to MacTavish J. Puppy who gives it a somewhat weaker shake, grasping the stuff between his jaws and twirling his white furry head angrily, accompanied by many fierce growls. This is to tell you that things are getting better with MacTavish J. Puppy. His internist says so. His acupuncture physician who continues to prod his backbone with needles which is discomforting, thinks so. His groomer—a very deft lady thinks so. She washes him in a tub of warm water and dries him with an automatic blower with MacTavish J. Puppy closing his eyes to the warm breezes. Before he goes to the groomer, the Mistress of this house has to comb MacTavish J. Puppy to get him presentable for the groomer. She says she does not love MacTavish J. Puppy but nevertheless she does her job with exquisite care. This is the operation that MacTavish J. Puppy distinctly dislikes as a steel comb pulls into the may knots of his fur. Occasionally he has enough and gently…very gently…applies his soft mouth to the fingers of his Mistress and leaves his teeth there softly, his sightless eyes peering up as a kind of warning. Then McTavish J.Puppy is released for the time being until he is recalled for the domestic torture to continue.

After his combing, MacTavish J. Puppy is ready for his early evening nap. Finally he announces that he is ready to prepare for bed and so is taken to his place of sanitary emission and reflection, then given the last treat of the night and hobbles to his regular station by his Mistress. He sleeps usually uninterruptedly until morning. But I have peered at MacTavish J. Puppy often in his deepest slumber and see that his white furry legs are moving ever so slightly as in his dreams MacTavish J. Puppy is once again a sprightly young dog bounding along our driveway as he used to do when young in full chase of a squirrel. This is a summary of the typical day in the exciting life of MacTavish J. Puppy. Once again, if you are bored or displeased with these stories of MacTavish J. Puppy you just can go to another website.

But before you go: let me tell you that I think there is something the matter with you.