A remembering day

My cyberfriend Barb, related some tales of her puppy’s recent antics, and one thing in particular reminded me of my darling little cairn terrier Leslie. I have a very similar bit of woodwork in my kitchen that my adorable Leslie ate, trying to burrow his way out. He had been put there for an hour while I was away from home, so that he wouldn’t eat anything he wasn’t supposed to and cause more damage. I thought the kitchen was the one room where there wasn’t much he could destroy. I was, of course, mistaken. Later, confined to the kitchen again, in desperation, he ate the whole floor. It was ugly anyway. Prior to that, (and the reasons for the confinement,) he had eaten a very old oriental rug, an early 19th century edition of Shakespeare with beautiful illustrations, and the stuffed koala bear I got at the UN when I was 13. He ate a nightgown while I was actually wearing it. How can this be, you ask? Well, at the same time, I had a cat who thought I was his mother, and nursed on my nightgowns in bed at night. Somehow, I thought this was happening again. But he was eating as well as nursing, and he ate a big hole. All this was in his first year. It's a wonder that he safely reached his first birthday and that there ever was a second one. *

This would be a tribute to his incredible adorability and sweeness. Later in life he stuck more to food, but still had a bit of an eating disorder. One evening after Becca had been making Christmas candy all day, she, Rachael, and I were in my bed watching Shirley Temple in Heidi. It was a dramatic moment in the movie. The Grossvater was driving his sleigh through the snowy town, calling, “Heidi, Heidi,” and Shirley was inside the Sessemann house weeping, kept in check by the evil Fraulein Rottenmeier. The three of us were weeping too. As our tears streamed down, I heard an ominous noise at the side of my bed. “Gnarrrf, gnoughk!” I looked down, and there was my little Lesile, staring at me piteously with his stomach heaving. I leapt out of bed, quickly moved him off the rug, and a stream of white foam spewed forth. Just like when you make divinity fudge! And it spewed, and spewed. He had eaten the remains of a ten pound bag of sugar which Rebecca had not secured! (Who would think they needed to secure the sugar?) Another time he ate a LARGE can of rolled oats and another, a large jar of peanut butter. These last two things also made him quite sick. The oats produced the effect that one would expect from eating lots of fiber. We had to tread carefully for several days. I might add that he got the lids off of the oat can and unscrewed the peanut butter jar himself. We had to get a sugar jar for the table – the kind you find in restaurants with screw on lid. He was not foiled. The oat can still has his little teeth marks on it and I have loving thoughts every time I see them. He lived to a ripe age of 16, despite his eating habits, and I still miss him every day.

* The blogger program seems to be deciding where I should make a new paragraph. Please excuse disjointed paragraphing. J