The Last Half of How We Spent Saint Patrick’s Day ~ And the Blessings Thereof

As this space is intended to be assorted musings about life in one’s eighties, I thought I’d quickly mention what happened to us on Monday’s holiday, as our being old was the salient factor.

Bill and I are no longer supposed to walk Uschi (our sublime seven-year-old German Shepherd weighs eighty-eight pounds…is strong and BIG). But because it had been raining, grandson Cameron couldn’t take her for her morning trot before leaving for school. So around 5:00 o’clock we saddled her up (Bill’s expression for attaching her leash), strolled happily with her down the street, a long block we enjoy for its gardens and neighbors.

As we approached the house at a cross-street we heard loud yappy-barking. “Oh dear, there they go again” thinks I. That’s because it came from a house with a young couple with two small children, a daredevil orange cat, and two medium-size not-sure-what-they-are dogs. A year or so ago, as we were walking past, these dogs ran out and attacked Uschi. Now you have to know they are not very bright as she is about four times their combined sizes. Uschi—at first startled then trying to defend herself—somehow brought Bill down…our dear professor was pulled over backwards then flat out in the middle of the street (no sidewalks in this part of Santa Cruz). He wasn’t hurt but was furious and yelled for the owner. The young man came running, was very very sorry, promised it would never happen again.

It’s been a year and the two dogs bark when we pass—they seem to be able to smell German Shepherd from inside their house. So Monday when I heard the dogs in their garden barking barking, I reasonably thought, “Surely there’s fencing behind those border shrubs.”

I was wrong.

The two small varmints came charging out yipping furiously, aiming straight for our sweet girl. One began biting a front leg, the other attacked her flank. Of course Uschi was frantic but Dad, six feet tall, ex-Marine—held tight, afraid of what she might reasonably do to her attackers if she was free. Then it happened quickly: Uschi, whimpering in pain, sank down, falling against Dad, which knocked him down, then I, inches from Bill, was surprised to feel myself going down and to my shock and dismay, I discovered the right side of my face was crunched smack dab against the street’s black asphalt. I was, truth to tell, a bit in shock for half a minute because it came so unexpectedly. And then I had to figure how to get up.

I will mention that once a month our CrossFit coach makes us do a five-minute exercise of getting up off the floor/ground/street…I’ve gotten quite adept at it, being experienced in the situation…

But before I could show my CrossFit stuff, I was suddenly aware there were half-a-dozen people crowded around us. Out of the corner of my eye, I’d seen a man stop his truck, get out of the cab and come over to us. Another car stopped, and a man got out, likewise. A man I’d seen walking down the block ahead of us came running back to us. Directly across the street we knew the young couple with two little boys–they’d bought their house a year ago and we always greeted one another as we walked by. Vince, even bigger than Bill, came running, and his wife, Ashton, carrying her one-year old on her hip, came rushing after him.

Vince grabbed Uschi’s leash, sweetly stroked and calmed her, while the man from the truck helped Bill up. Then the man in the car and the man who’d been walking ahead of us each took one of my arms and gently pulled me up off the street. Ohmygosh, thank you.

Later it struck me that out of the blue of a holiday afternoon passersby saw two fit-looking greybeards and a big handsome dog kerfluie in the middle of the street, with the ludicrousness of two small dogs yapping at the heap…And likely it would seem in the grand scheme of things that if you were close enough to see them, by rights you should go to their aid. It was amazing. Heartening. Amazing.

Bill had not been hurt. But Uschi was favoring her right front paw and whimpering, and my head and cheek hurt. Now Ashton, Vince’s wife, came close to me, asked how I was. I knew she was a doctor. She asked if I was on a blood thinner. Yes. “You should be checked out…” (something unhappy about bleeding). Oh. Oh dear.

“I guess I should drive over to Dominican Hospital.”

“No, you shouldn’t drive.”

Vince said, “I can take you. It’s easy.” Ashton nodded that was a good idea. What dear people.

I still was waiting for the owners of the unrestrained dogs to come out of their house. They had to be home because their wretched pair had gone back to their garden. But either they weren’t home or were too mortified to face us. I felt for them.

We accepted Vince’s generous offer, walked Uschi the block-and-a-half back to our house–her paw seemed okay. Earlier I’d driven Cameron to his Lacrosse practice and a friend was planning to bring him home, our splendid young man was adept at preparing something from the freezer for his supper, so Cameron would be okay.

Vince picked us up, drove us the twenty-five minutes in rainy coming-home traffic. He dropped us off at Dominican Hospital’s Emergency Room around 5:40 p.m..

On the way, though, I made felicitous discoveries.

Vince loves to garden, just built raised beds in his back, and plans soon to start his first kitchen garden. Well! I told him a little about me, said I had a lot of seeds and a book I’d love to give him, said I’d be happy to be of any help I could.

Vince also said that being Italian, he loves to cook, does most of the cooking in the family.

“Well,” says I, “I have another book you might like…”

What a delight! What joy! To have a strong smart young kindred spirit, a beginning gardener and enthusiastic cook—just down the block. And with a doctor wife and two handsome toddlers…I told Vince that between Bill and me we have twenty-one grandchildren and nine great-grands so we’re competent to babysit…

The E.R.’s waiting room was so crowded with dozens of worried people that it was extraordinary Bill and I found two seats next to one another. And watching people, I was reminded that it was St. Patrick’s Day and I’d forgotten to wear green, how could that be? I did bring my knitting (I’m working on a Fair Isle Christmas Blanket which will take me till December to finish) but I didn’t feel like knitting. So Bill and I chatted (we do relish one another’s company), and as it got dark it was time to listen to our evening ration of bright minds on Substack—David Azrael, Andy Borowitz, James Carville, Paul Krugman, New Republic, Heather Cox Richardson, Timothy Snyder, Joyce Vance—and I read Ottolenghi. Then we did Wordle on my iPhone…got “lasso.” Reminded ourselves that we had to enter it on my kitchen laptop before midnight or our new streak would be broken (we’d just lost our streak of 115 when I was up to my elbows in lemon/lime marmalade and too frazzled to think about Wordle… if you miss an entry, you’re sent back to #1).

Around 10:40 after two blood pressure takings and two CT scans, I was finally called in to talk to the doctor. Both scans–inside my skull and the bones on my face—were normal. Thank heaven. I was fine.

All evening I’d quietly worried that if—as Bill predicted, we wouldn’t get out till 11:00 o’clock—we wouldn’t find a ride home and we’d have to impose upon a friend. I asked the guard at the door about Uber at that hour, he said one would come quickly. I resurrected my Uber account on my phone, was so very tired and hungry that I chose the extravagant UberXL ride. Vanessa was at the ER door in seven minutes.

And then! The icing on our day’s crazy cake.

Chatting with the handsome young woman driver, we discovered she wanted to be a photographer. Well! I told her of my experience studying photography at UCLA Extension, we talked about light and cameras and film and…

Vanessa was a gift. When I mentioned the photographs I’d taken for my blog, do you know that in our driveway when she opened the car door for me she showed me the logo of this blog! She’d already pulled it up. What a compliment. I’ll hope to hear from Vanessa again.

Have to tell you that today Bill and I talked to the young owner of the bad dogs. Of course he was mortified. Another very dear young man. But here’s what’s interesting: he said his dogs can go to the dog park and be great with every dog—except a German Shepherd. He said there had been a German Shepherd in their past that made them crazy… He was so very sorry and would do his best to fence his yard…

And yesterday we took a sackful of vegetable, herb, and flower seeds, some of our Meyer lemon marmalade, and a heap of Meyer lemons and Rangpur limes to Ashton and Vince. My “Kitchen Garden” books for them will arrive in a few days. Repeated offers of babysitting…

Vince said comic-sternly to Bill, “But if I ever see you walking Uschi again—”

Funny. But he’s right.

St. Patrick’s Day was it? Well, St. Paddy certainly brought us blessings any number of ways.