Nailing Chicken Wire to a Fence...

...is not something I thought I would ever do, but it is done. MJ and I nailed and tied chicken wire in the hot blazing sun on a Saturday afternoon in Oxford, Mississippi. We sweated and toiled in order to keep Daphne, 15 pound beagle, in the yard. "Yard" being intermittent patches of brown grass, a patio deck, and a machine that pumps freezing cold air into my house, centrally. First time living outside of New York. First time in the South.

Daphne somehow manages to get out every time.

She mocks us from outside our kitchen window, while we innocuously sip our coffee and we have to run outside and call her in. She wins again.

We have taken turns trying to watch her. Learn her method of escape. Inevitably we get bored and turn to each other for a moment of fleeting conversation. And she is gone. Always running towards the woods. I would call her Houdini, but her mental capacity reminds me more of the Hamburglar.



Today she got out and I chased her to the edge of the woods where she defiantly entered. I stood outside yelling her name in my pajamas, with a mug of coffee in my hand. I recognize this as a moment of transition from urbane sophisticate to women-who-yells-barefoot-in-pajamas-at-her-dog-while-drinking-coffee. THE COFFEE WAS MADE FROM A FRENCH PRESS GODDAMNIT. A FRENCH PRESS.

When she finally emerged from the woods all feral smelling like dead armadillo, I gave her a bath she will never forget. Ever.