More Dog Days of Summerfeatured

“When I was sick with Covid,” I said to Aurora, “I thought I saw something with white fur moving quickly outside in the front yard.  I thought it was a hallucination from the virus.  Was that you?”

We were loading all of her luggage up into the attic and the last steamer trunk was being a problem.  Going up the rickety stairs was terrifying and I had to lift up the trunk to get it through the hatch, where Aurora would guide it and I’d be able to slide it onto the floor.

“Of course it was me,” she huffed, “Because you were sick I had to postpone my return by a couple of weeks.  I’m not going to come in this house when it’s infested with plague.  You humans really messed up this Covid thing and plumbed new depths of ignorance.  Even I rolled up my fur to get my vaccinations before my return.  How can humans be so selfish?”

“Don’t even get me started,” I gasped as I gave the trunk a shove and it vanished, Aurora maneuvering it across the plywood sheeting.

It had been decided that renovating the attic room to be Aurora’s space was the best course of action.  An addition onto the house was too expensive, likewise the construction for a new “spaniel shed” and I eventually put my foot down at giving her the sewing room.

I saw her appraising the fold up attic stairs with disgust.  “These are simply not efficient,” she said.  “It’s such a pain.  There has to be an easier way for me to get up and down.”

“Take up with Jeremy,” I told her abruptly.  “I have no idea where you will put something more substantial.”

I was at my sewing machine trying to finish up a caftan made of a very loud silk twill later that afternoon when I heard a crash, a series of bumps, and a point of weakness opened up in the ceiling.  As I watched, the point of a saw appeared, the rest of the saw followed it and moved around in a circle spraying a fine dust onto everything below.

A white, fluffy paw stomped it free and it crashed to the ground.  Aurora and I looked at each other through the hole.  She called down to me, “This will be an excellent spot for a dumbwaiter.”

“A dumbwaiter?”

“Yes.  There’s just no place for me to put a spiral staircase, and I’m not climbing up and down some rope ladder like a child’s treehouse.”  Some of her soft white fur fell into her eyes and she brushed it out of the way with a swipe of her paw.  “I have everything I need up here, pulleys and all.  When the dumbwaiter is retracted, no one should see anything.”  She smiled warmly at me.  “Everything is under control.”

I was not surprised that Aurora had everything well in paw and I should have been happier than ever.  But I was on pins and needles because I knew the fragile truce between Jeremy and Aurora was going to disintegrate at some point.  But the days went by, nothing happened and Aurora pretty much stayed out of everyone’s way–what I didn’t realize at the time was that she, unfamiliar with Jeremy, was gathering intelligence on his strengths and weaknesses for future plans of attack.

Then Gustav was scheduled for a dental cleaning.  He didn’t feel like eating for the rest of the day but he did the next morning and that’s when Jeremy found us together in the kitchen.  “What IS that??” he demanded, picking up the dog bowl that I’d just filled with a can of Science Diet.  “This looks like Irish stew!  How much did this COST?”

I sighed irritably.  At this time his first home–our investment property–required substantial repairs and watching the constant debits–we were practically hemorrhaging money–put him in an exceptionally sour mood and touched off one of his miserly episodes.  I knew we were in trouble when I opened the pantry and saw piles of foods familiar from hard times–stacks of canned goods and other nonperishables, powdered milk, Vienna sausage, refried beans and tortillas.  A moratorium was placed on takeaway meals, eating out in restaurants, and all special treats.

Usually during Jeremy’s fits of economy everyone suffered but this time we all decided to go along and make a family effort to cut down and save.   One afternoon the dachshunds and I used rhubarb that we’d frozen earlier in the summer to make a pie from scratch, and Johann Sebastian carefully trimmed some chives from the garden to make some homemade herb butter.  “Even simple things can dress up the most humble of meals,” he assured us.  Gustav pulled out stacks of puzzles from the closet and that became the evening’s entertainment.  Aurora initially rolled her eyes at all of this but ultimately continued to stay out of Jeremy’s way entirely.  Her entire existence and life philosophy was in direct opposition to thrift and economy; she decided to make herself even more scare as a result.  She also looted the jewelry cabinet (while reminding me that it was all hers anyway and I had only been holding the collection in trust) to hide the most stunning and rare pieces to keep them from being sold.  “Out of sight, out of mind,” she told me as she rose up to the attic in her dumbwaiter, “and don’t you dare rat on me.”

Unfortunately after this latest dental episode Gustav ended up with 14 teeth pulled.  I knew it was going to be bad but didn’t think it would be THAT bad, and there was no way he could crunch kibble while he was healing.  Jeremy thought the kibble bags were expensive and he almost passed out when he saw that the soft food Gustav needed was almost $3 per can–and he needed one per day.  Jeremy suggested we find cheaper cans but I wasn’t having it.  I could have bought a car for what it cost to repair Gustav’s spine and at this point in the game I couldn’t care less about the cost of canned Science Diet.

Gustav was also cross and the moment the drugs had worn off surveyed the damage with Aurora’s mother of pearl hand mirror.  “Fourteen teeth,” he moaned.  “At least I still have some teeth, with which to bite Mr. Parker.”

“You aren’t supposed to want to bite him,” I said, and he gave me a peevish look.  Despite his grumbling, Gustav and Jeremy had grown quite close and they often spent an evening watching television together from the big overstuffed chair.  Also, since Jeremy had made it quite clear that he was the alpha of the house Gustav had become much less aggressive.  The stress of being the self imposed alpha had just been too much and he soon found himself much more comfortable and happy as Jeremy’s XO.

Johann Sebastian was watching Aurora come down from her attic room with fascination.  “Why is it called a dumbwaiter?” he asked me.

“I named it after you dachshund morons,” she said as she hopped to the carpet.  “It is takes less effort to say than dachshund-waiter, and it is synonymous.”

“So when do we get to see the space?”  he asked.

“It’s almost ready.  Want to see what’s been done?”

But Aurora had to put her plans on hold when reminded that Jeremy and I had called a family council.  As everyone assembled in the den the dachshunds were confused, Bowie was terrified (as per usual), and Aurora entered the room with a large silver mace, informed us that she was now Sergeant-at-Arms for this meeting and assumed a protective stance in the doorway.

We opened the council with news that Jeremy and I had been dealing with the question of his first home and what to do with the property.  (Aurora’s ears jumped with immediate interest.)  We had to decide between:

Selling the property–a short term gain, but the property would no longer be ours,

Continuing to rent the property–long term gains, but no renter in the world could keep the place maintained to the standards that Jeremy expected–it was his routine to randomly drive past the house so he could conduct inspections from the curb and whatever he saw usually drove him crazy on a near regular basis,

Or turning it into an Airbnb–long term gain, we would still have access to the house to make it available for visiting friends and family, and Jeremy could continue to fuss over it to his heart’s content.  Between the two of us and the leftovers from combining our households we could easily furnish another small residence so we were already a couple of steps ahead in the process.

It had been decided, we told them, that we would try the Airbnb.  It would be an ongoing project and once established even decorated to the seasons.  The dachshunds and Bowie all nodded with agreement, no objections there.

A cunning and crafty smile slowly started to spread across Aurora’s face, noticed immediately by Jeremy.  “Don’t even think about it,” he snapped.  “Paying guests are the priority here.  Not you.”

She frowned.  “To think that I’m banished to the attic like some kind of spectre from a Victorian novel because there’s no other choice, and then I find that there’s another entire property in your ownership that I wasn’t aware of?  What else are you hiding?” she demanded, pointing an accusatory claw at the both of us.

I expected Jeremy to explode but instead he gave her a benevolent smile, taking us all off guard.  “Not at all.  You are more than welcome to live at the property when there are guests.”

Aurora beamed with triumph.  “Now that is more like it.”

Jeremy continued.  “In fact, yes.  I do think that is the way to go.”  He smiled broadly at her and then hove the bomb.  “You can be the housemaid.”

A gasp shot up in the room like a geyser from the dachshunds and I.  Bowie started to shake.  The four of us edged slowly away from them and clumped together for safety.  The smug glow vanished, her eyes narrowed and her paws tightened around her sergeant’s mace.

“A housemaid,” she hissed loudly and drew herself up to her full height.  “an Imperial Royal Highness, an Empress and Queen?  A maid?”

He was fully enjoying himself now.  “It would be perfect.  You could collect the money from the cleaning fees and whatever you choose to use it for is your own business.”

“My first purchase will be a guillotine,” she fumed, “How DARE you, you, you–ignorant swine!  I am Aurora.  I do not bow to tyranny and I do not toil.  I am most certainly not your SERVANT.”

Jeremy folded his arms, frowned, knit his eyebrows together and tilted his head and at this Johann Sebastian edged for the back door saying, “Oh deary me, so sorry, look at the time, oh my goodness I’ve got to pee.”  Bowie, Gustav and I thought this sounded like an excellent idea and as we tiptoed after him Jeremy continued–

“So what are you, then?  We never did get that clarified.  If you’re family, then you will contribute in your own way.  If you are NOT family and refuse to do your fair share, then you are a guest in this house and I’ll start charging YOU rent.  It will be the absolute least you can do.  The electric bill has gone up seven percent since you arrived and you haven’t been here a month.  Either you can make the choice or I’ll do it for you.”

I didn’t hear what happened after that point because all of us had escaped out the back door.  Gustav shouted “Hit the dirt!” and we all leapt off the edge of the porch, diving flat onto the ground with our hands (or paws) over the backs of our heads, eyes scrunched shut, waiting for the inevitable explosion.  This is a fine house, I thought regretfully, I will be so upset seeing it as a smoking crater in the ground.

But nothing happened.  No sound, no blast wave, no mushroom cloud.  We were still suspicious and were bickering over who would be the first to go in when Jeremy stuck his head out the door and gave us a puzzled look.  “What are you all doing out there?  Come inside.”  Not even a stick of furniture was out of place and Aurora had vanished.  We dare not go look for her.

The next day Jeremy and I went over to the Airbnb house–“the cottage”–and were there all day setting things to rights.  When we returned, the dachshunds were wound up and yelling excitedly about a loud crashing noise, Bowie was cowering behind the curtains in the formal room and Aurora was still nowhere to be found.  As Jeremy opened the back door he swore viciously and ran outside.  I shouted a question but he didn’t respond; once I let the dachshunds out of their crate we followed him..

“There is a tree in my spot,” said a confused Johann.  It was true.  Half of the back porch was obscured by a pile of branches and leaves.

One of the maples had an entire limb break off and what seemed like half the tree had fallen first on the roof, then rolled to hit the ground and covered the porch.  We couldn’t see if there was any damage to the roof since the point of impact was covered with smaller branches that had broken off the main limb–the leaves waved despondently at us in the breeze.  We could see a noticeable dent in the gutter.

I buried my head in my hands.  I was already exhausted from a day working at the little cottage.  The costs were already enormous, and now this, we come home to a major repair on OUR house.  I couldn’t bear it.  And even worse was the knowledge at what could have happened if we’d left the dachshunds outside in the back yard while we were gone instead of in their crates–they could have been seriously injured or killed by the falling limb.

Jeremy wanted to climb up in the attic immediately to check the underside of the roof, but I had piled all the Christmas decorations under the attic trap after we’d gotten all that luggage up the stairs; I’d been too tired to move anything more.  Aurora came hurrying from the hallway, complaining of the horrible crash.  “I was minding my own business, and it sounds like the sky has fallen on the house,” she complained.  “It was a terrible noise.”  Jeremy demanded to know if she had seen any damage and she reported that she had not.

The following morning the fellow who already trimmed the trees for us at the cottage came bright and early to see what happened and give Jeremy an estimate for cleanup.  There was no question, the tree had to come down.  The good news was that the roof had escaped damage, and we all exhaled in relief.  But then he continued, “I’m putting you guys on the list first thing the next morning.  See how the trunk splits in two right above where that broke off?  That half of the split (he gestured) is hollow, and just barely hanging on.  It’s going to come down and when it does–” he pointed at the most likely direction it would fall, right on the sewing room–“that one will cause some real damage.   Keep everyone away from this area of the yard and the house until we can come tomorrow–it’s far too dangerous.”  It did look very bad.

Aurora already had a rolling suitcase ready and waiting at the front door when we all came back in.  “This is the absolute limit,” she said shortly.  “I cannot live here in that attic when there’s a risk for something smashing through the roof.  I didn’t come back to be squashed by a tree.”

It is a mark of how rattled Jeremy was at this point watching yet another “to be determined” four figure amount fly out of his bank account that he handed her a spare key to the cottage without a word.  I sighed and went to go get my car keys to drop her off but by the time I found them she had already vanished along with her luggage.

The next morning dachshunds and I watched the team carefully bring down the menacing tree; the house was now safe.  Gustav insisted on going outside to inspect the remains of the maple and since it was all on the ground by this point we decided it was safe to do so.

“How are we supposed to count the rings if the tree is hollow?” asked Johann as he sniffed the trunk, but the answer to that was to examine what was left of the stump.  Even then there were gaps, and as the dachshunds were bickering over the age of the tree something caught my eye.  Near the break where the limb had fallen off were several notch-like marks around what was the diameter of the limb that fell.  I moved in for a closer look.  It didn’t look like teeth marks from a squirrel, it wasn’t anything stress related–much too clean for that.  Like a saw.  Something had definitely come along and tampered with the limb–it had been purposeful.

I was then startled by Aurora.  “Whatcha doin’?”

I pointed at the strange markings and cut to the chase.  “Did you do that?  Surely you wouldn’t have done anything this terrible–someone could have been hurt or killed.  I know we all make jokes but I can’t really imagine you doing such a thing!”

She blinked several times at me and then shrugged.  “I came back from Heaven to be with my family.  I wouldn’t do anything to harm my family–well, not anything that would result in a long hospital stay or death, anyway.  At least this happened during the day when you were gone and everyone else was crated,” she reminded me.  Moseying over to the place where I was pointing, she whipped out a magnifying glass and gave the marks close examination.  “It looks like whoever placed these marks,” she said casually, but not looking me in the eye–“knew what they were doing and wanted that limb to fall a certain way.”  She looked up to the roof and squinted.  “Funny how whoever this was–if it was indeed engineered by someone–came down in just the right form and fashion to hit the roof where the impact was spread out, flat, across the length of the limb and not concentrated in a certain point–well, I mean other than the gutter, but these things happen–and then just rolled off to the ground, not hurting anybody.”  She walked along the trunk examining it.  “Perhaps the instigator didn’t stop to think about the part of the tree that was left standing…well, nobody’s perfect…in any event, it’s taken down now and all’s well that ends well.”

“Yes, it is all very strange,” I told her sternly, giving her the evil eye.  “Why did you decamp to the cottage?  You practically couldn’t get out of here fast enough.”

She gave me a placid smile.  “The iron was hot.  I struck it.  Now I have residence.”

“You are treading dangerously, Aurora,” I warned her.  “Jeremy was almost at his wit’s end last night.  The thought of the expense of repairing the roof had him up for hours.  He is allowing you to stay here, with us.  Does that matter to you at all?”

“It matters very much,” she said firmly, “And I am sure we will get along better with time.  But as for now…he needs to learn a very important lesson: no one holds power over me.”  She balled up her paw into a fist.  “No one bosses me around.  And I am nobody’s maid.”

During our conversation the dachshunds had gotten distracted by squirrels running along the fence and we watched them for awhile in the silence after her statement.  “How are you going to move into the cottage when we are going to have paying guests within the month?”  I asked.  “Are you just going to live there, not seeing us?  And really clean up after everyone?”

Aurora shook her head.  “Oh, no.  It will be amusing to be over there for a temporary change of scene, but this is home now.  I’ll be out before the first guest arrives.”  She gave me a devious smile.  “This is all just part of the lesson.”