~ The Not Ready for Prime Rib Players~
What began as perfectly good idea for Keira and me to pass the time in the brisk winter air became, well, something else entirely.
It started with passing the idea to Hazel. Well, actually it began the night before.
When Mom headed down the hall for bedtime, Keira and Hazel decide to follow since it didn’t look like Dad was going to have any snacks while he watched a movie. Of course you understand that as a pack, it’s our duty as four-leggeds to stay close and supervise any foodstuffs consumed by two-leggeds. I could explain more on the rules and application of our surveillance mode around food, but the most important part is that I decided to lay next to Dad on the couch and watch the movie with him.
I usually nod off during long stories displayed on the moron’s magnet (T.V.), but the main character caught my attention. He seemed to really understand the art of tail wagging in an expansive way (for a two-legged, that is).
As the movie progressed, which I think was called something like Man of La Munchhausen, I felt inspired to become a knight currant too.
What I liked about the main character was that he was older (like me), he loved adventure (like me), and he was thin (like me under my thick coat). I knew – I just knew – if I had a chance to talk with him about the highs and lows of life as Sheriff of the Pack, he would empathize and probably have good advice (and sing a song to me).
Most of all, I liked his willingness to run headlong into battle.
Laying there next to Dad, I began to make plans to challenge our own giant in the garden. In my mind, the whirly-gig-thing in the garden was now my most fearsome foe, and I could hardly wait till morning. One problem began nagging me: what would I use as a sword?
As I pondered my swordless conundrum over and over, Keira came into the living room, yawned, and took a long stretch. When she raised up, the character Aldonza was fussing with the men around her, and Keira was intrigued. Towards the end of the movie, when the main character, Don Coyote, seemed to be dying, Keira stood and wagged slightly when Aldonza spoke her part. Then Keira abruptly headed back to the bedroom mumbling to herself, while I was left pondering how to carry on the work of a knight now that my new friend appeared to have died.
The next morning right after breakfast, I explained all this to Hazel who flatly refused to directly participate as my amour bearer, Punchy, but she did agree to speak with Dad about getting me something to use as a sword.
I was so intent on eliciting Hazel’s help that I didn’t realize Keira was behind me until she piped in to demand that Hazel also get her something to wear as a skirt. She wanted to be Aldonza.
Keira said she would help me in my quest if I would enact the last scene with her. I told her I would do that, but I wasn’t going to die. She said I just had to look old and sick, and she would do her lines. I felt kind uncomfortable having her do a scene like that with me – her pack brother, her senior, and her Sheriff – but she is the baby of the family.
Hazel must’ve done a good job convincing Dad of our good intentions because Dad called us down to the studio and showed me how to hold Hazel’s plush shark toy to stick out of my mouth as a sword. Then Dad took a green bandanna and tied it around Keira’s waist for a skirt. Keira responded with wide body wags and a quick lick of Dad’s face.
I was anxious to rush headlong into battle, but of course Hazel had to ask a question, and of course Dad had to pontificate for what seemed an eternity.
Hazel: What’s the Aldonza character all about?
Dad: Well…how can I put this? Hazel, do you remember when we were in Tuba City and that tourist couple got out of their rental car with their Afghan dog?
Hazel: Not really.
Dad: …and the Afghan must have been coming into season, and a group of neighborhood rez dogs appeared from all directions and surrounded the Afghan and her Mom?
Hazel: I remember you jumped out of the truck and helped the husband get his wife and the Afghan back into their car, and by then the car was surrounded. They could barely drive away.
Dad: That was Aldonza’s life, nearly every day.
Hazel: Wow….
Dad: But Don Quixote believed better things about Aldonza, and called her Dulcinea;
because he refused to see life as it was, but how it could be. That seemed like his failing, but it was actually his strength. In the end, Aldonza decided to believe in better things for herself and her future. Perhaps that was Don Quixote’s greatest victory.
With that said, Keira raced out of the studio and down the hallway and out the back door. I followed with my sword firmly set in my jaws.
Blasting past Keira in her green skirt, I set my battle stance right in front of the whirley-thing which was not only spinning, but waving back and forth in the wind.
I realized then that I ought to speak (bark) my declaration of war, but my mouth was full of shark, so I decided to resort to my stomp dance before lunging forward to tilt at the windmill. Just before I lunged, Keira blindsided me and took the sword-shark right out of my mouth.
She ran back and forth across the yard and taunted me to the point that I was so frustrated at the interruption of my knight currant duties, I caught her by her skirt and spun her around so hard the purloined shark shot out of her mouth and right over Hazel’s head where she was waiting at the back door to say her line. Hazel thought that was her cue and barked loudly, “Aldonza”!
Keira ran back into the house barking, “I am Dulcimer, I am Dulcimer….”
When Dad appeared in the midst of our chaos, he ignored Keira’s barking and asked Hazel how it went.
She replied, “There seems to have been a bit of improvising.”
Dad, walking back to the studio, said to nobody in particular, “I am so glad I didn’t watch West Side Story.”
Like I mentioned before, sometimes a good idea turns into something else entirely.
