Sammy Alley

Every day I take my dog for a walk, and we head down Sammy Alley. Sammy Alley is the unofficial name of the narrow passage about a block from our house. We named it that because toward the end of her life, it was all the further Sammy could make it on her walks.

Bailey is of course much quicker and much more curious about his stroll down this lane every day. He knows when we reach the intersection of the sidewalk and the alley, we take the alley, and he leads me down the path, his ears perking up when he sees a bunny, head cocking as he stops to sniff some flowers. It’s near the beginning of the walk, so Bailey is always ahead of me on Sammy Alley, unlike the end of the walk where he has to work a little harder to keep up with me.

It’s kind of strange to have a dog walking way ahead of me down this stretch of street. Sammy was always lagging behind, hobbling along, her arthritis clearly bothering her to the point where people who crossed our paths would comment on the “old girl” doing the best she could to get her daily exercise.

At the beginning of Sammy Alley is an unkempt tiny yard belonging to one of our neighbors. Two cats live at that house and we always look to see if they are outside when we take our walks. Most of the time they are. They have a little cat door and they can come and go as they please. The curious thing about these cats is that I’ve never seen them out of their little yard. One of them is always on the bench and the other is always on the sidewalk. Sometimes it’s just one of them, and the striped one is out more than the calico, but they never leave the yard. I smile and say hello and if they acknowledge me at all, it’s only to give me an annoyed look and send me on my way.

Halfway down there is a pumpkin patch. I’ve been watching the pumpkins grow all year. This part of the alley is never at a loss for bunnies. It is here that I have been able to practice teaching Bailey not to chase bunnies. I never had to think about that with Sammy. She wasn’t interested in chasing bunnies. She was just trying to get around the block.

Three-quarters of the way down is a garage and more bunnies and at the end of the lane there is an overly rambunctious Irish Setter who invariably runs to the end of his fence, jumping and barking at Bailey, just like he did with Sammy. Both of my dogs always responded by eyeing the dog, tails wagging.

Today as Bailey and I were nearing the end of Sammy Alley, I stopped and took a picture. It is the perfect picture of Sammy Alley on a cool autumn afternoon, the sun shining brightly from heaven onto a world that’s about to go into another season.

I didn’t know it on all those walks that I took with Sammy, but it is right here in this location that I learned to love dogs. I never really wanted to walk her every day but I felt it was my duty on the evenings Brian was otherwise occupied with golf. Somewhere in all that pulling and coaxing her around the block, somewhere on those walks where she would just decide she was no longer going to walk and instead she was going to sit down right where she was and let us get the wagon for her, somewhere in all that waiting for her as she plodded along, I fell in love with Sammy. She will always be the dog that turned me into a dog lover and made me realize something I was missing all my life.

As I stood there and snapped a picture of it today with Bailey by my side looking up at me almost like he was smiling, I knew he would never really know the significance of the alley we just walked through. But he will know the end result for the rest of his life. Every day he will know that I love him. Every day I will be thankful that I rescued him from a life of neglect and abuse and brought him into a home filled with love. And we both have Sammy to thank for that.

Maybe someday everyone in the neighborhood will know this little lane as Sammy Alley and the legend could live on years after we are gone. But for now, I’m OK with knowing it my heart and thinking of her every time my dog turns down the lane at the beginning of our walk.

The Problem With Being Bold...

I walked into a beauty store in Altoona tonight looking for eye makeup and foundation. Before I could get to the aisle I was looking for, a woman asked me if I needed help with anything. I told her no, thank you, I was here for something specific and started over to the aisle containing my makeup of choice. She followed me and said that I should buy this other product because I have I have a lot of pink.

I blinked.

“Pink in my eyes?” It’s allergy season. Who knows?

“Pink in your face.”

I’m sure I gave her a look, but I followed her over to the tiny tube of $30 liquid foundation she was trying to sell me. She squirted some out on the back of my hand and told me to rub it in. I humored her and told her I would keep it in mind before walking over to get the makeup I was there to buy.

What was wrong with this conversation? I had just finished a 45-minute workout, thrown a tee shirt on over my tank top and run out to the store. Why did she see so much pink in my face? Well, I think you can probably figure that out, but she couldn’t because she just assumed she knew what she was talking about.

It’s a big mistake to assume you know what you’re talking about. Sometimes it really makes you look foolish, like the lady at the beauty store tonight.

There was another time when I was at a conference and the subject of my cats came up. This woman who was super-abrasive and acted like a complete know-it-all from the minute I met her looked at the pictures of them on my smart phone, rolled her eyes and said, “Ugh! I hate Siamese cats. They meow too much from morning until night. I hate that. Do yours meow all the time?”

I smiled, giving her much the same look I gave the woman at the store tonight. “Not really.”

Why? Because they’re not Siamese. They are Ragdolls. All three of them. Yes, two of them are seal point. Yes, they have blue eyes. But beyond that, they look nothing like Siamese cats. Siamese have bigger ears and a more angled chin than my cats do. But she was so sure of herself I didn’t say anything to burst her bubble and walked away thinking she was really kind of an idiot.

Now, I’m not saying that I haven’t been that idiot many times over. I’m sure my husband could tell you plenty of stories about that, like the time I so confidently walked up to my cousin’s house after my mom asked me if I was sure that was the right house. I told her of course I was sure this was the right house. After all, I have been here before and you have not. I walked up to the door and knocked and some Greek woman who spoke no English answered. I said, “Um, is Cari here?” She called for her grand-daughter who did speak English. I asked if this was the right address and she said no, it’s one house down. Great. Now I had to go back to the van and announce that in fact this wasn’t the right house, a story I’m sure they will never let me forget. :)

My point is that maybe as I get older and see this in myself and others I will get wiser. Maybe I will learn to keep my mouth shut if I don’t know what I’m talking about.  The more I see how foolish it can make you look, the more I will keep it in mind anytime I assume I know something.

I’m going to try. The alternative of looking unintentionally foolish is much worse.

(Intentionally foolish is fine. But those are other stories for other times.) :)

I was sure the answer would be YES…

When I was in high school, it was a fate worse than death if the boy I liked actually found out I liked him. Identifying to anyone the person I had a crush on meant they were within a small inner circle of friends that I trusted. It was understood that I would observe my crush from a distance, analyze his every move, blush bright red if he even looked at me, then go home and write about him for hours in my journal.

I was a crazy stalker.

Seriously, there are volumes and volumes of pages written about the boys I liked in high school. The scary thing is, I knew next to nothing about any of them. Whatever I didn’t know, I would just make up based on not-so-casual observation and half-conversations I would hear about him.

Mostly I was like this because back then I had no confidence in myself. But I was young and awkward and stupid but one day I grew up and all of that changed.

I remember when I was about 27 there was a guy I thought was pretty cute. He was a friend of a friend and I will call him Alex for the purposes of this blog. One New Year’s Eve, I was invited to a party Alex was attending and he basically spent the entire evening talking to me, then walked me to my car in the wee hours of the morning, carrying some of my things out to the car for me. I felt pretty certain there was a spark there, and even more certain when he invited me to his super bowl party a few weeks later. Again we spent most of the day talking, so it was a no-brainer to me that he would be calling me and asking me out at some point after that.

I waited a week. Then two. Then I decided I was just going to call him. I knew what they said about guys liking girls with confidence, but that’s not why I did it. I did it because I thought he was too shy to call me and I really wanted to go out with him. Once I made up my mind, I really didn’t hesitate. I picked up the phone and called. He answered the phone and I went through the usual small talk before asking him if he wanted to get together sometime and go out to a movie or something.

I was confident in my delivery because I really thought there was no way he was going to say no. But that’s exactly what he said. Well, it wasn’t exactly a no, but it was some equally dismissive response, like he would let me know sometime or maybe he would give me a call. Of course he never did. I knew a blow-off when I got one and that’s exactly what he was doing.

I crumbled up his phone number and threw it away. The next day I was slightly embarrassed when I had to tell my best friend how the conversation panned out, but that was pretty much the end of any conversation with or about Alex.

Within a month of my conversation with Alex, I was dating the man I would eventually marry, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

But I was thinking about how people react when they don’t get the date they thought they were going to get. How many people just forget about it and almost forget that it ever happened? How many people allow something like that to really hurt their self-esteem? How many continue to pursue the person, possibly becoming someone they’re not or just trying over and over again to prove to themselves they can get the person they wanted?

I don’t know the answer to any of those questions, but I started thinking about it as I was thinking about some of the characters in the Jessica Summer Series. Those of you who have read “Love, Emily” know that Jillian was crazy about Adam to the point of literally being crazy about Adam.

I don’t think I would ever go to extremes for a guy who rejected me even once. What about you? Have you been more persistent than me (but less persistent than Jillian) and what were the results? Did you get the guy and live happily ever after? Did you get the guy and realize he wasn’t someone who was worth fighting for to begin with? Did you continue to pursue and never get the guy? Or did you just take no for answer the first time and move on to someone amazing?

I’m curious to know how other people have handled rejections from the opposite sex. If you are so inclined to comment, don’t worry, I promise I won’t write you into any of my stories without your permission!