On that same day in Houston, it was a balmy seventy degrees. But on that fateful propaneless night in Nowheresville, it got down to twenty-five. Twenty-five is a brisk daytime sunshine temp. It sucks for camping, however. Which is what you are doing if you are in the wilderness with no heater, even if you are on a mattress in a trailer.
So, for starters, it was wayyyyyyyy too cold for naked. It was flannel-jammies-double-comforter cold in the Quacker. But I mentioned reason number two for no naked: Petey.
Since it was just the right temperature for the abominable snowman, but not for a sixteen-pound dog with a thin layer of hair, Petey did not find his own bed a satisfactory place to spend the night. Actually, Cowboy and Layla didn’t, either; they were living the high life in the back of the old Suburban. Don’t scoff. There’s a big difference between the windless inside of a vehicle warmed by their breath—and away from the yelps of coyotes and calls of the wild hogs—and twenty-five degrees on the ground outside the Quacker. Worry not, friends, the broken seals around the windows gave them ample oxygen as well.
Where was I? Oh, no naked and Petey. So Petey suggested that he join us under the double comforters in our bed. Normally, Petey is a no-people-bed kind of dog, although not for lack of trying. He only spent a night on the bed with us once before, and that was the first night after Cowboy put Petey’s eye out. You would have let the little bugger sleep with you that night, too, I guarantee.
On this night, as we breathed whole storm systems of frost clouds over our heads, I felt sorry for Petey.
“Just for tonight,” I said.
“Just for tonight,” Eric agreed without hesitation.
We didn’t even have to say, “Come, Petey.” He sensed the change and leaped up between us, where he tunneled under the covers to the foot of the bed. I couldn’t have asked for more. My feet were blocks of solid ice, and his warm little body thawed them right out.
As Eric and I finished Eskimo kissing goodnight a few moments later, though, a rocket shot out from under the covers, and when we pressed our lips together for a people kiss, Petey’s cold, wet nose and wetter tongue made contact with both of our lips. It may not have been the most romantic way to end the evening, but I’d trade my cold feet for his cold nose anytime. So, after a few dry heaves, we bid our little critter a fond goodnight and fell asleep three abreast, all snuggled up and warm as a summer day.
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Chapter Fifty-two: Running Out Of Time
Cowboy, our big yellow dog, the mutant labrador, the dainty little waif who talks like Chewbacca and steals hearts like a master thief . . . Cowboy is no longer a young dog. Now, after a weekend in Nowheresville, he lay at my feet. Occasionally he moaned. If I talked to him, he answered in what could best be called a wail. Our last visit wasn’t such a tough weekend for him, comparatively, but every weekend of physical activity is hard now. The temperature stayed cool, which helped, and we walked more than ran, which did, too, but the end result was the same: an old, arthritic dog, heavy on his feet and feeling the passage of every day.
Once upon a time, Cowboy ruled the rainforest of St. Croix. He was master of his domain and a pack of six dogs at Estate Annaly. He ate up the ten-mile runs Eric and I took along Scenic Road overlooking North Shore on the west end of the island. He lived the life, man, he lived the life. He had his own swimming pool out back and a pond out front, and took trips to the beach every weekend. He regularly made the magic hike up the stream to Caledonia Springs. How could it get any better?
Then we moved him to Houston, to a city-sized backyard whose ponds were barely deep enough for wading. He was little more than a captive there. “Don’t worry,” we told him, “we promise this isn’t the end. We’ll find you a new home to rival Annaly someday.” He wagged his vase-breaking bass drum mallet of a tail in understanding. He trusted us to make it right.
Oftentimes, though, we would pull up in our driveway to see his huge mournful head behind the bars of the gate, only his long nose sticking out. Even if he went for a run, it was on a leash, his feet pounding the concrete. Years passed this way. He made the best of it. He held it in. But he had lost so much, and the clock ticked forward steadily.
We bought sixteen acres in Nowheresville, a beautiful place. He would cry with joy when we pulled up to its gates in the old Suburban. From our earliest days there, though, it was clear he had lost a step. The charm of the place wore thin after a few hours. He’d limp around on city paws. He would stay curled up in the shade rather than join Layla in a game of chase-the-Suburban or on a forest explorations. He lost a fight with a water moccasin, although even that couldn’t stop him for long.
We plan to build our someday house there and make a permanent move when our youngest child graduates from high school. Susanne the Dog Whisperer, Susanne, Cowboy’s best friend. Only one problem, though: Cowboy will be nearly fourteen years old by then, which is ninety-eight in normal dog years, and nigh impossible in giant mutant labrador years.
Only a few months ago, we had allowed him to join us on a seven-mile run. It was 6:30 a.m., but it was summertime Texas. Ninety degrees and humidity were too much for him. He crawled under our Suburban, which we had parked at the halfway point, and lapped up all the water and ice from our open cooler. Layla galloped along beside us. He watched silently, licking his sore paws and panting in the heat. Earlier that same summer when we had gone for a run, Cowboy simply laid down in the road three long miles from home and would go no further. We had no way to help him except to continue on without him back to our vehicle, then return to cart him home. We found him one and a half miles from our property, laying in the muddy bottoms of an empty pond. Eric coaxed him back to the Suburban and lifted his limp, stank, and steamy body waist-high and into the truck bed.
Just last weekend, Cowboy had stumbled along the loamy trail at the end of our single file line: he brought up the rear, then me, then Layla, the ever-vigilant guard dog and accomplished runner, who was lagging well behind Petey, the sixteen-pound distance terrier who had churned out the canine equivalent of a ten-mile run twice over the Christmas holidays. Petey, the dog I had thought too small to run more than a mile or two with us. Petey, with his one eye and giant swagger, was, in a twist of fate so painfully ironic that the angels wept, the heir apparent to the kingdom of the giant yellow dog who had stolen his eye. To the home Cowboy was to have at Nowheresville, the home that should have replaced his beloved Annaly, but maybe never will. Layla will grow old there. Petey will spend his prime there, a runty little dog no match for a coyote or wild pig. But Cowboy, who in his best days could have kicked the coyote’s ass and still had enough left in him to give the hog a thrashing? These shorts visits may be all he has. For Cowboy, the dog that ran rings around life and all of us on St. Croix, is running out of time.
So, God, my God and the God of all creatures great and small, if I could ask for just one thing of you for our old friend, it is this: Please let Cowboy stay with us long enough to spend peaceful evenings in front of a Nowheresville fireplace, knowing he has made it back to the promised land of a home fit for a kingly beast, a real home at last. Amen.
If God doesn’t see fit to grant this prayer, I comfort myself with this thought: I’ve come to believe that there is so much more out there beyond myself and what my eyes can see. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Cowboy accompanies us to Nowheresville, no matter how he has to get there. And if I can remember that there is life outside the center of the universe that is me and my perceptions, I’ll bet I find him there.
Someday.
The End
Now that you have finished Puppalicious and Beyond, won’t you please consider writing an honest review and leaving it on Amazon and/or Goodreads, or any other online sales channel of your preference? Reviews are the best way readers discover great new books. I would truly appreciate it.
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About the Author
Pamela Fagan Hutchins holds nothing back and writes award-winning and bestselling mysterious wome
n’s fiction and relationship humor, from Texas, where she lives with her husband Eric and their blended family of three dogs, one cat, two ducks, four goats, and the youngest few of their five offspring. She is the author of many books, including Saving Grace, Leaving Annalise, Finding Harmony, How To Screw Up Your Kids, Hot Flashes and Half Ironmans, and What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes? to name just a few.
Pamela spends her non-writing time as a workplace investigator, employ-ment attorney, and human resources professional, and she is the co-founder of a human resources consulting company. You can often find her hiking, running, bicycling, and enjoying the great outdoors.
For more information, visit http://pamelahutchins.com, or email her at [email protected]. To hear about new releases first, sign up for her newsletter at http://eepurl.com/iITR.
You can buy Pamela's books at most online retailers and "brick and mortar" stores. You can also order them directly from SkipJack Publishing: http://SkipJackPublishing.com. If your bookstore or library doesn't carry a book you want, by Pamela or any other author, ask them to order it for you.
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Connect Online With Pamela
Twitter: @pameloth
Facebook: http://facebook.com/pamela.fagan.hutchins.author
My blog: http://pamelahutchins.com/blog
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Other Books by Pamela Fagan Hutchins available on Smashwords
Fiction from SkipJack Publishing:
Saving Grace (Katie & Annalise #1)
Leaving Annalise (Katie & Annalise #2)
Finding Harmony (Katie & Annalise #3)
Going for Kona coming Fall 2014
Nonfiction from SkipJack Publishing:
The Clark Kent Chronicles: A Mother's Tale Of Life With Her ADHD/Asperger's Son
Hot Flashes and Half Ironmans: Middle-Aged Endurance Athletics Meets the Hormonally Challenged
How to Screw Up Your Kids: Blended Families, Blendered Style
How to Screw Up Your Marriage: Do-Over Tips for First-Time Failures
Puppalicious and Beyond: Life Outside The Center Of The Universe
What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes, and How Can I Be One, Too?
Other Books By the Author:
OMG - That Woman! (anthology) Aakenbaaken & Kent
Ghosts (anthology), Aakenbaaken & Kent
Easy to Love, But Hard to Raise (2012) and Easy to Love, But Hard to Teach (coming soon) (anthologies), DRT Press, edited by Kay Marner & Adrienne Ehlert Bashista
Prevent Workplace Harassment, Prentice Hall, with the Employment Practices Solutions attorneys
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Audiobook versions of the author’s books are available on Audible, iTunes, and Amazon. The Katie & Annalise books are narrated by Ashley Ulery, http://ashleyulery.com.
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Acknowledgements
Huge thanks to my editor Meghan Pinson, who managed to keep my ego intact without sacrificing her editorial integrity. Thanks of generous proportions to my writing group, without whose encouragement and critiques I would not be publishing this book. Mega thanks to Cowboy, Layla, Petey, Juliet, and Annalise, the stars of this book, for shining so brightly. Thanks to the power of infinity to my husband Eric, without whom I would be half of a whole. The sad and lonely half.
Thanks also to Alex Dumitrescu and Heidi Dorey for fantastic cover art. Photography credits go to Eric and me.
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Excerpt From How To Screw Up Your Kids: Blended Families, Blendered Style
Chapter One: Despite Our Best Efforts
It’s not that we didn’t try to screw this parenting thing up. By all rights, we should have. We did everything that we possibly could that we weren’t supposed to do. We gave them refined sugar when they were babies, didn’t enforce nap times, spoiled them with expensive and unnecessary gifts. We said yes when we should have said no. We said no when we should have said yes. Our swear jar was always full.
Oh, yeah. And we were one of those “blended families”—you know the kind, the ones with broken homes, divorces, stepparents and complex custody arrangements. Those people. The ones other parents are leery of, like divorce is a communicable disease or something. Who knows? Maybe it is. My own parents even told me once that I had made my children a statistic by choosing to divorce their father. That I had created an at-risk home environment for them.
Me? Perpetual overachiever, business owner, attorney, former cheerleader and high school beauty queen? The one who’s never even smoked a cigarette, much less done drugs? My husband? Well, he’s the more likely candidate for an at-risk homemaker. Surfer, bass player, triathlon enthusiast. Oh yeah, and chemical engineer and former officer of a ten-billion-dollar company—but you know how those rock-n-rollers are. We probably teeter somewhere between the Bundys and the Cleavers.
But there we were, watching yet another of our kids cross yet another stage for yet another diploma, with honors, with accolades, with activities—with college scholarships, no less. Yeah, I know, yadda yadda yap. There we were, cheering as the announcer called Liz’s name. Three of her four siblings rose to clap, too. The fourth one, Thomas, couldn’t make it because he was doing time in the state penitentiary in Florida. (Just kidding. He had to work. At a job. That paid him and provided benefits.)
We tried our best to screw it up. We had the perfect formula. But we didn’t—not even close. Somehow two losers at their respective Round Ones in love and family unity got it close to perfect on Round Two. By our standards, anyway. Because we didn’t give a good goldarnit about anyone else’s.
What’s more? We got it right on purpose. We made a plan, and we executed the plan. And it worked. After all that effort to screw things up, after the people in our lives who loved us most wrung their hands and whispered behind our backs (and those who didn’t love us chortled in anticipation of our certain failure), we went out and done good.
Now, I’m no expert on child rearing (although I’ve had lots of practice), but I am an expert in helping grownups play nice and behave at work. How annoying is that? I know. I’m a scary hybrid of employment attorney and human resources professional, blended together to create a problem-solving HR consultant. And from where I sat, our blended household—or blendered family, as we call it—looked a lot like a dysfunctional workplace in our early days.
Or a little warren of guinea pigs on which I could conduct my own version of animal testing.
The HR principles I applied at work were, in theory, principles for humans, humans anywhere. Blendering occurs in workplaces when a leadership team gets a couple of new members, and it happens in a home with kids from different families of origins. HR principles = people principles = blendering principles. Right? That was my theory, anyway.
Statistics tell me that you, dear reader, are or will be in similar straits: divorced, starting over, trying to make it work. If you’ve already been there and done that, I hope you’ve disappointed all your naysayers, too. You’ll enjoy this book all the more as you relate to the pains and the joys of blended families. But if you’re on the cusp of what feels like an express train descending into hell and wondering how to buy a ticket back, I can help you.
Really.
Okay, probably.
If not probably, then quite possibly.
At the very least, maybe I can say I warned you, or made you laugh. It’s a crazy and unpredictable ride, but the destination is worth it.
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Chapter Two: How did the Bradys do it?
Blendering Principle #1: It’s hard to get anywhere if you don’t know where you’re going.
Most of the members of my generation know all we need to know about blended families from the Brady Bunch, right?
Not.
Please, folks. That was just a sappy television show, and didn’t Florence Henderson have an affair IRL with one of the TV sons? Sounds a lot like incest to me. We clearly need a new set of role models, yet I'd be vacationing in Fiji right now if I had a nickel for every time someone said to me, "Oh
! You're just like the Brady Bunch!"
The Bradys wove their magic through engaging scripts and clever sets, cute young actors and the star power of Florence Henderson. Eric and I didn’t have those crutches to lean on. Neither will you.
Real blended families start with two adults who want to pledge their troth, which in English means they want to marry. Or at least cohabitate with commitment. Oh, hell, maybe not even that. But that conundrum brings us to the genesis of our blended family success, and IMHO, a critical element.
Each of our kids had already endured one familial breakup. Were we ready to provide them stability and an example of enduring love? If not, why would we knowingly put them through sure trauma again? Nothing is certain in life, but Eric and I were all in. Not only were we all in, but we both had a consuming desire to demonstrate to our children the type of relationship we dreamed of for them, and neither of us felt like we had done so in our past lives. Scratch that. We absolutely knew we had not done so in our past lives.
So, we were madly in love and promised forever. Believed forever. Were confident in forever.
Still, this left a lot up to chance.
Pretend for a second that you married a touchy-feely HR consultant. Imagine that she had a penchant for things like mission, vision, and values statements. Picture her love of goal-setting and accountability. Some of you have mentally drawn up your divorce papers already.
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