Simple Salads

The weekend passes far too quickly and Monday arrives, a little on the gray side at first, but then the skies begin to lighten and I hear birds in the crepe myrtle and the lonely wail of a stray cat - a tabby with four white paws sits in the middle of the street, raising her voice and protesting her homelessness - the black dog is outraged at the noise and crashes through the blinds to answer her with a fury of anxious barking.  She snarls and growls and paws at the window as if warding off the approach of a demon.  The cat gives her a single contemptuous glance, then dismisses her with a tail flick, casually stretching and then wandering off in search of adventure and perhaps a morning meal.  The dog, under the mistaken impression that she has run the intruder off, gives a final chuff and then curls up in the chair and falls into a restless and victorious half sleep - momentarily calm and quiet but still alert and watchful.  For her, there is danger and treachery around every corner and she rarely if ever lets her guard down - even in her sleep she twitches and growls intermittently and often comes instantly awake at the slightest sound, in full attack mode and prepared to defend her territory to the last breath.  No amount of love, attention, praise, or reassurance (not to mention obedience training - twice! - and a variety of drug therapies) has ever altered her nature.  She is what she is and you can take her or leave her but you can't change or re-invent her.


I suppose it's just this very often unappealing trait that draws me to her.  She tries my patience every single day, 
exhausts and infuriates me on a regular basis, wears me out with her limitless energy and nonstop motion.  And yet, at the end of the day when she lays her head on my knee and gives me a sad, soulful look - in between baring her teeth at any approaching cat, a ruse if ever there was one - I can't help but love her.  We all need our lost causes, I suspect - people who are unlovable, who reject help, and snarl if we get too close.  We all imagine we'd find the good if we could dig deep enough and get past the cemented layers of suspicion and hostility.  I hate the thought of peeling an onion down to its core and not finding some hidden, surprise sweetness, hate the thought of all those silly, wasted tears to make a simple salad.


At six weeks, she was a tiny, black ball of fur, even then in perpetual motion, headstrong, stubborn, unwilling to please, chasing anything that moved and without a mellow bone in her small body.  At ten years, she is exactly the same.  Who, I wonder, has really failed to learn a lesson.


Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for ~ Clarence Darrow