Dealing With Lucy’s Embarrassment

The Dunnevant Estate has a new house guest. Ever since our kids moved out, Pam and I have enjoyed opening up their end of the house to a series of temporary tenants in need of a place to live. We have hosted groups of students on choir tours. We housed several semesters of Liberty University nursing students in town for their clinical studies. Most famously, we housed our nephew’s then fiancée—Bernadette—for eight months while she was homeless and  stranded between college graduation and matrimony. Now, Bernadette has struck again, a little over a week ago asking us if we could possibly house a youth intern at Hope Church whose housing had fallen through. Since neither Pam nor I are able to refuse Bernadette anything, we have a new house guest for the next 10 weeks or so. This time, its a boy. He arrived here tall and thin, quiet and well mannered. From the looks of it, after eating Pam’s cooking this summer, he will leave here much thicker but hopefully still well mannered. Lucy seems to approve, always a good sign.

After months of longing we have finally entered the 30 day window on our annual Maine summer season. Actually, we enter it tomorrow morning, but who’s counting? We finally have commitments from the kids on their weeks of participation. We are thrilled that they will both be joining us this year but disappointed that they will be with us on different weeks. Once again Pam gets to celebrate her birthday at the lake (July 19), and this year our stay will be for six weeks, our longest sabbatical to date. Miss Lucy will be joining us and is delighted to have a place to go to hide her hideous haircut from all the other neighborhood dogs, who she claims have consistently mocked her since that horrible day at the groomers. Look at Lucy! She look like lab!! Yo, Luce..did you get cookie wid dat cut?? Hahaha. Your human must be blind as bat. He probably say ‘it grow back’…hahaha. Maybe by winter…bruhahaha!! Lucy can’t wait to see the expressions on all their faces when we back out of the driveway heading for Maine. Lucy will be like…Good luck with hot and hoomid, suckers. When I comes back, I will be gorgeous again and you will all still be ugly mutt-face!! I tell Lucy that the only reason the other dogs tease her is because they are so insanely jealous. I remind her of the many advantages that she was born with and that she mustn’t stoop to their level, that she must rise up and be the better dog, to which she sneezes and snorts her frustration…Easy for you to say, you not one with hack job cut…even squirrels laugh…squirrels!!

As you can see, Lucy has not gotten to a place of forgiveness. She has kept me at paws length ever since the Petsmart debacle. But whenever I mention the upcoming Maine trip her face brightens, her tail—or what is left of it—wags enthusiastically, and she allows me to give her head scratches. I’m thinking that by the time we return from Maine we will all have put the whole nightmare behind us.