FSH DYSTROPHY AND WALKING MY DOG

A woman with a disability thought about the old mom and pop grocery store in front of her house. She needs to have a ramp built just to get in there to evaluate what all needs to be done or maybe someone could lift her up the back steps? Community Center? Coffee Cafe? Art workshop? She could be there when she could. A barista of sorts? Don't put the cart before the horse, she thought.

That cold February morning Claire got on her laptop feeling like a very bad girl, she hadn't written in two days. She remembered commenting on the Democratic Debate on Facebook and posting a movie review of “Timbuktu”. That counts for writing, she allowed. 

She looked down at her dog Linus, who was antsy about going out to pee. The black lab face with grey hairs in his eyebrows and grey beard under his chin. Brown eyes, so confident and unfeigned.

This is why I don't get any writing done, was her excuse. So she put on a lavender fleece bed jacket over her pajamas and zipped up her boots, rollerated over to her power chair and sat down. She hooked him up to his leash and started outside.

The next door neighbors, a man and woman, were on their back steps having a smoke. Linus walked her over to the Sago palm and sniffed around. He looked at the street in front of the house and looked hopefully at her. 

She said, “This is just to pee, we're not walking now.”

He crossed the driveway to the azalea bed and peed on the edge of it. She looked up, the stray pug was ambling around. Fearing a dogfight in her P/C, she thought, dammit, I've got to call animal control again. She pulled her dog back toward the ramp hoping he

wouldn't see the other one yet because with Linus, loud dog whining always ensued. Think a dog's been caught in a bear trap. Her dog stopped and looked over at the neighbors and barked once.

“No, you don't bark at people in their own yard.”

The guy walked towards the pug as she turned around to start up the ramp. Midway, the woman laughed and Claire glanced quickly back over her shoulder. The pug was trotting away towards home.

She had narrowly avoided the struggle with Linus where his whole body tenses and becomes like one of those statues you see in the park, only he comes alive and starts trying to run after the other dog like his life depends on it. Sighing with relief, she hightailed it the rest of the way up the ramp and herded him in the door.