The weeks are flying by. Every day is identical: Get up at the crack of dawn, feed the dogs, drink coffee and read the news, eat breakfast, make the same joke (“I’m going to work now. Hope the traffic isn’t backed up on the landing”), head upstairs. Work for three hours, head downstairs, make lunch, eat. Head upstairs again (skipping the joke about the traffic), work for four hours, walk the dogs, have a glass of wine and make dinner, watch a movie, walk the dogs again, go to bed. The monotony is dizzying.
The only thing that’s changed significantly in the last two months is we’ve added a new dog. He came from a woman in Memphis who had dementia and moved into a nursing home. We were told he was a 9-year-old cocker spaniel. In fact he’s an 11-year-old poodle mix. I suppose I should have paid more attention when they said the woman had dementia. She had two dogs to rehome, and it appears we got the other one. But no matter, we adore him. We changed his name from “Teddy” (which he didn’t seem to recognize) to “Zayde,” which is Yiddish for grandfather. He doesn’t recognize that either, because most of the time we call him “Poodle,” and the rest of the time we call him “Hey No Pee-Pee Inside!”
Getting a new dog is a happy event, but stressful too. Poodle imprinted on me the minute he met me, and if he could, I’m pretty sure he would serenade me with “You Are My Everything” a hundred times a day. Because he’s so attached, the first time I left the house without him for a few minutes, he let loose with a mournful wail that was so robust the other dog, who reserves her howls for late-night fire engine sing-alongs, joined in, resulting in a tragic keening the likes of which I have never heard.
At some point, I figure quarantine will let up and I will need to be able to leave home without Poodle glued to my hip, so we’ve started leaving him alone more and more: 20 minutes for grocery pickup, longer for neighborhood driveway happy hours. In the beginning, he was frantic upon our return, clawing at me and trying to jump into my arms, a little spark of crazy in his eyes. But these days, he’s taking a cue from the other dog, who wouldn’t be caught dead fawning. Now he’s showing some decorum.
I don’t know when our lives will return to something approximating normal. All of my husband’s summer and fall art festivals have been canceled. This means no traveling the country, no unveiling new work, no spending time with his art friends and – most unsettling – no art income. And even though the country – and the city – is beginning to open up, no place feels completely safe. I don’t live in constant fear, but I do have a healthy regard for science, and as the science suggests a rise in virus cases as we emerge from quarantine, I don’t feel compelled to nose around Target for sandals or plop down at the Olive Garden for endless fettuccine.