The madness of a seduced woman

About 25 years ago now, I read a book with that cheesy title. It was a great big book, about 600 pages I think, and I became obsessed with it. At the time I had five children and the largest house I've ever lived in to care for, plus a 25 hour a week job at the W.J. Niederkorn Library. Yet I found myself constantly sneaking off to read a little more in that book. I can remember quite a bit about the story. A young woman left home to work in a textile factory in Massachusetts in the late eighteen hundreds. A handsome but callow young man seduced her. There was a pregnancy and a very unpleasant back-street abortion. The young man then began to gradually make himself scarce. Ironically, the one thing I can't remember is what the heroine did in her "madness." Did she kill him? I just can't recall. What does this have to do with us and our blog? I feel like a seduced woman and I got mad. Seduced into believing how wonderful these Internet connections are, how easy to harness for my purposes. Perhaps I should mention at this point that I have no patience at all with machines. Our Mantis tiller has an edging attachment that does an excellent job. I rarely use it because I don't want to coax the nasty little thing to start. A few weeks ago my sister sent me nine beautifully wrapped birthday presents--all things that she knows I really like. In my excitement after opening them all I turned to my trusty computer to type a thank you e-mail. It takes a while to say thank you for nine presents. I was only about half done when the screen turned blue, my e-mail words turned white, the damn thing winked at me and just that quick my thank you effort disappeared. Three days later I tried again and IT happened again. One of my computer advisers, whose name is Matt, tells me to think of my computer as a file cabinet. Apparently a file cabinet that swallows my info, files it who knows where and refuses to return it. If you are reading this, it means that Mr. Computer File Cabinet has realized that the madness of a seduced woman is nothing to trifle with. I have cooled down, but this is most likely its last chance to behave itself.

Full fledged pack member at last

It was a cold January morning with a bright blue sky and sunshine when we went to pick up our puppy. She lived on a lane, off a gravel road, off a service road, off the highway so it wasn't so easy to find her. I started thinking it was a sign that we should wait till spring to get a new dog as sensible people would. But suddenly, up ahead, we saw a young woman batting tennis balls in the snow for her border collie to fetch. Trailing behind them were three fat little half foot long puppies with their tails straight up in the air. We brought a squirming Bear on home. We played with her and laughed at her antics and took her for a half dozen short walks. Then it was bedtime. We made her a little bed and confined her to the laundry room. I didn't expect her to be happy about being suddenly alone and she wasn't. We went up to bed though, figuring that she might as well get used to it. When we came down in the morning everything that someone so short could possibly reach and tear apart had been. The laundry room was trashed. We cleaned up the mess and my husband left for his workshop to make a little wood and wire cage. That little cage was where Bear spent her nights and her "time outs" for several months to come. When it began to get a little snug, I went shopping and bought her a kennel. Since then she has spent every night in her kennel for over a year. She never grew to love it and go there on her own as the books would have you believe. On the other hand, once there she was always quiet and seemingly content. But for the last few months we've noticed that when she sees people brushing their teeth and putting on pajamas, she sneaks off to our dark spare room and tries to become invisible. When she hears that it's bedtime, she rolls over on her back and puts her feet in the air. When she's finally persuaded to head for her laundry room bed/kennel she lets out a groan, and when the kennel door slams shut she barks one sharp protest. I began to think about how our former dog, Molly, had moved around on summer nights and stretched out on various new cool spots. I took pity on poor Bear who is growing up to be a somewhat calmer, more mature little Bear and perhaps deserved a chance to sleep where she chose. Two nights ago I went upstairs and left her to her own devices. About an hour later I heard her tiptoeing up the steps and settling down on the rug on my husband's side of the bed. She went from one bedside rug to the other during the night. About four a.m., when it was getting light, she put her feet up on the bed and laid her head on my chest and tried to kiss me. She was one proud and happy Bear, finally really, truly part of the family--day and night. However, four a.m. seems to be her wake up time. She woke me up then again this morning. I told her it was still bedtime and she should lie back down. She did and then went downstairs with my husband at five a.m. [His wake up time.] She seems to like it best when we're all together, so she came to check if I was awake yet two more times between five and seven.