Our First Anniversary

We are celebrating our first anniversary in our new house. Lots has happened in the past twelve months; we said goodbye to Chester and hello to Penny, we celebrated all the occasions, experienced all the seasons and we are still speaking to each other. We survived the downstairs renovation and the moving of the palm tree. We’ve had a busy year.

To celebrate this anniversary I thought I’d re-post the very first episode of Downstairs/Upstairs. A story which took place exactly one year ago today…

Transfer of Power – downstairs/upstairs 

Downstairs 

It could have ended badly but it didn’t, thankfully. I’m generally a very cautious person – a scaredy-cat – but once in awhile I get my looking and leaping mixed up and plow headlong into a situation without care or thought. Such was the case on the first morning after moving into our new house.

Our new house, the one I purchased with my elder daughter and son-in-law, is a mere block and a half from the house I called home for thirty years – the house my younger daughter and son-in-law and family live in today. Four hundred and fifty meters to be exact. I’m only new to the block, I’m an old timer in the hood. I haven’t met any of my new neighbors yet which made the situation I found myself in on that first morning a tad tenuous.

I’d spent the day before directing the movers, stacking boxes and trying to find my shower curtain – it had been fun and confusing and messy.

Younger daughter and I planned a run to Costco in the time between her dropping her girls off at school and when she was required back at said school to pick them up. I had a list as long as my arm of things I needed and we had a time limit (the time limit becomes an important detail in the events about to unfold). Elder daughter and son-in-law had a two day jump on their getting settled and were busy doing their own thing in their new house up the stairs from mine (this detail is also worth noting – they had already located their shower curtain).

We were about to set off on our hurried shopping trip when I noticed a commotion across the busy street beside our new house – a young woman walking a golden retriever was being pestered by an extremely friendly untethered dog. The duo and was obviously in some distress – the pestering dog seemed intent on making their acquaintance.

This is where the looking and leaping gets mixed up.

I quickly crossed the busy street while inquiring if the woman knew the untethered dog. A silly question given her obvious fluster. I offered to snag the overly friendly beast and afford her an opportunity to move along if she could slow down a bit before doing the moving along. Everyone was in a hurry – the woman and her dog, my daughter and I – everyone had an agenda, everyone except the extremely friendly beast who appeared to have all the time in the world.

It wasn’t until I slipped my hand under his spiked black leather collar that I realized the extremely friendly beast may have appeared short from across the street but it was also extremely strong. It wasn’t until I got a better look at the short but extremely strong and friendly beast that I realized I had snagged a pit bull. And it wasn’t until after the snag that I realized I had no idea what I was going to do next.

Everything happened so quickly I hadn’t had a chance to think. The flustered woman and her dog made tracks up the hill, they were but specs on the horizon. My daughter had watched the events unfold and at some point during the two and a half minute encounter made her way across the busy street (she always has my back). A man was standing in his driveway a few houses away on our original side of the street and offering to call animal control – he made no move to assist our situation (please note – this is the moment where MY hasty action becomes OUR situation).

I handed the dog to my daughter and set off to make enquiries at surrounding homes. The dog was obviously well loved, the evidence lay in the extreme friendliness my younger daughter was now trying to control. (What kind of mother hands her daughter a squirming pit bull and says ‘here, hold this’?)

Old people are slow to answer a frantic knock on their front door but they are also quick to commend bravery when they see it – even from a distance. No one recognized the dog.

At this point I had an epiphany – I had another daughter in close proximity and she had a garage.

We made our way back across the busy street, younger daughter still trying to maintain her hold on the squirming pit bull. I did my frantic knocking on a familiar front door and elder daughter came to the rescue with a leash.

This is where my firsthand account of these events ends – after giving elder daughter the details younger daughter and I jumped in the car and left her holding the leash. We sped off having donated too many minutes of precious shopping time to a stray dog.

I’m told that after elder daughter secured the safety of the extremely friendly beast she interrupted her husband’s shower to inform him they had a pit bull in the garage.

“And they f#$&ing went to Costco?” he said. And MY hasty actions suddenly became HIS situation.

Obviously there is more to this story – the second hand Coles Notes are this:

After posting a picture of the friendly beast on every social media site they could think of they walked the neighborhood with the dog hoping someone would recognize him – nobody did. The frantic owner eventually showed up at their front door after the guy who had generously offered to call animal control pointed her in the direction of our new house – he’d watched the story unfold and waited for the search party to show up at his door before offering assistance.

It turns out the extremely strong and friendly pit bull is new to the hood as well. His name is Snow (because what else would you call a pit bull wearing a spiked black leather collar).

Younger daughter and I made it home from Costco in time to pick her girls up from school and everyone (including Snow) is living happily ever after.

The end 

OR 

The beginning of a whole new adventure where it’s all fun and games until you have a pit bull in your garage…

Upstairs 

So, in my defense I was enjoying a really nice shower. You have to understand that I have lived in a series of places with terrible showers. Dark and scary showers with low pressure and terrible elbow room, but that’s a whole other story. The bottom line is that this shower is amazing and I was enjoying a hot, relaxing, spacious shower when my loving wife announced there was a pitbull in the garage. “Pardon me?” It’s not something you expect to hear before 9am, especially when you don’t have a pitbull. Slightly out of breath, wide eyed and speaking in the quicker pace she uses when she’s excited or scared, she explained in scattered detail that my mother-in-law and sister-in-law had acquired a free-range pitbull, who was now being contained in my garage. 

I’m generally pretty good at keeping a calm head in a crisis, but this situation had been sprung on me when I was without pants. A man is at his most vulnerable without pants, so I was feeling a little unprepared to address a “pitbull in the garage” situation. That may have been when I stated “and they f%^&ing went to Costco”?

I love dogs and don’t have any specific fear of pitbulls or any other breed, but judging by the puppy-cries coming from behind the door, I suspected I had a scared doggo on my hands. Feeling more centered after acquiring some pants I entered the garage with a pocket full of treats and made a quick friend in the muscular grey and white pitbull. As he gently took the cookies from my hand and licked them in thanks, his legs shook and he whimpered quietly. Given his gentle and friendly nature I looked at him and thought “I bet you are named fluffy or snowball.”

And he was right. And the rest, as we say, is history.