Writing Prompt: Right in front of me
I live with synchronized swimmers, which is excellent, since when I was
little in the late 60s, I was enamoured with Esther Williams and her
underwater ballets. I thought the way she and the other women looked
like flowers in the water was absolutely enchanting. Like the halvah my
mom got me once at a deli on 25th in Potrero Hill, the memory of Esther
stayed with me, even though for years I didn't know who she was and
couldn't get anyone else to confirm her existence.
Now there are Gunny and Sak, the ridiculous litter mate brother
dogs that live in our house. I swear to you, they are connected by an
invisible line, or perhaps a magnet. One one moves, so does the other.
When one sleeps at the end of the bed as I'm laying across it sideways
crooking my neck to type, the other matches his position exactly. They
lift their heads together, stretch their paws the same. Today at the dog
park, they even pooped in tandem, head to head, like a yin/yang!
Gunny is more of a scardie dog than Sak. Not sure why since they
ostensibly shared all the same experiences, enough to make them read
each other's minds and do the same things. Sak, however, will go
along with Gunny which means a lot of loud barking for such relatively
small creatures. I've been told by the grumpy bull dyke dog groomer (my
favorite kind) that they are Jack Russell Rough Coat/Broken Coat. You
may be imagining the regular Jack Russell in your mind, but these are
more like shaggy dogs - Gunny with the black and white markings of a
nice Jersey cow, and Sak white with some subtle yellow spots that
are almost impossible to see except in the right light.
When our dog Massey died right before Thanksgiving two years ago we
grieved. I thought we would take a break, maybe even for as long as a
year, but when you are used to having four footed companions, as much of
a pain in the ass as they are, it's hard to go without. I wanted two
dogs so they could keep each other company. Little did I know that would
actually translate in dog language as "egg each other on." The little
rascals have ripped down a dog door, bitten through a plugged in cord
causing half the electricity in the house to go off, eaten shoes, and
left "presents" all over the house. We now have child gates everywhere
which we think is perfectly normal until a new kid comes over to play
and looks at us quizzically while trying, like Houdini, to figure out
how to open the latch.
You'd never know from looking at them just what rascals they are.
You would, however, be amazed at their ability to run in tandem.
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