Fly Terriers, Kazoos, and Other People’s Grandpas. And Hair.

Our dog Tuley was rescued from a sidewalk on the day she was born and her provenance remains a mystery. People ask us all the time what kind of dog she is, and we hate to disappoint (or miss an opportunity to embellish), so sometimes we say she’s a Cairn terrier mix. It’s a likely guess: she’s a little low-slung for a Cairn, and her ears hang low (and wobble to and fro), but the face and cheery disposition are about right. I also like to claim she’s a Brown Barbaloot. But the fact is, Tuley is a Fly Terrier. As I type this, Miz Tulip is leaping madly about the room, flailing her little furry mitts at a low-flying fly. The amazing thing is that despite being about 9 inches high at the shoulder, in a house with 8-foot ceilings, somehow Tuley Always Gets Her Fly. What is it with house flies? What is evolutionarily advantageous to bumbling about in the living room’s understory, banging into the legs of furniture and telegraphing your every move with a stream of muttered buzzes? I can’t imagine. (Although, to do the flies justice, Tuley does occasionally require the assistance of her hunting steed, Valerie, who scoops up the dog, leaps onto the couch and aims her directly at her hapless prey.)

Anyway. I just thought I should set the stage. Tuley’s chasing flies. I am drinking water out of a glass hand-blown by my sister and painted (also by her) with a lyrical scene of a yellow monkey sucking strands of spaghetti out of a bowl of meatballs. This evening we were gifted with a fabulous and reviving summer supper (if I describe it in detail you will be jealous), and now Val is out with visiting friends.

But what about kazoos, you ask? Bear with me, I’m in a wordy mood. (If you can’t stand it and need to cut to the chase, I can tell you Val and I are both fine and the niece’s-wedding-slash-family-reunion in Billings was a smashing social success and a great chance to hug family.) But the kazoos are relevant. Here’s why:

The weekend began auspiciously when we arrived in Billings on Friday at about 11 p.m., expecting to be picked up by Val’s brother Brad. In the Billings airport, passengers (at least, passengers on United) are disgorged from the terminal at the top of a broad flight of stairs, down which they descend like unwashed Southern debutantes. We did this, blinking wearily at our feet and occasionally peering down at the gathered throng, scanning for Brad amid the commotion. Boy, somebody was sure getting a hullabaloo of a greeting. I think I actually looked back over my shoulder to see who it was before I realized that the massed crowd of kazoo-honkers and balloon-flaunters was holding an enormous, 30-foot banner reading “Welcome, Val & Deborah!” Also individual signs saying things like, “Val for Prez!” and “Deborah for V.P.!” And also (I finally realized) I recognized these people. Great heavens above. A flattering percentage of the entire multigenerational clan had stayed up waayyy past bedtime just to give us a hero’s welcome.

This is when I knew it was going to be a great weekend.

And so it was:

Niece Wendy got beautifully married to a great guy wearing a cowboy hat. The great guy’s tipsy grandpa prevailed upon Val’s sister to dance, to the apoplectic merriment of Val’s mother and aunt. (You can click on the following link to enjoy a bit of that dance, plus Grandpa’s inexplicable ruffling of Val’s dad’s hair.) Val’s mom made me do the chicken dance on the sidewalk. Aunt Margie fed busloads of relatives her famous biscuits and gravy, accompanied by home-canned chokecherry preserves, apple butter and divine apple juice from the trees out back. The parents of the bride hosted an ongoing open house with unruffled aplomb and plenty of food and laughter. Gifts were exchanged in several directions. An opera-trained aunt-in-law serenaded us in the street (at Val’s request) with a haunting midnight Ave Maria. We both had conversations of unprecedented intimacy with all kinds of people, about death and life and all the scary and glorious confusion in between.

There was dancing and singing and laughing and eating and fancy shoes and family gossip and children crawling on tables and, well, everything you’d want in a wedding weekend, and more. And it wasn’t until we were on our way home that Val’s hair started falling out.

Which is right on schedule. (And therefore can’t fairly be blamed on the relatives.) Her scalp feels somewhat sore and sensitive and the hair’s beginning to come out in tufts, so tomorrow Val’s going to have it shorn mostly off. She plans to make an occasion of it, and since you can’t easily videotape your own haircut, a videographer friend has offered to do the honors.

If you made it this far, you get a fresh raspberry from the garden. Or a sugar snap pea. Your choice. They’re both flamboyantly in fruit.

tired but so happy we went,

Deborah

p.s. Billings wedding and trip pictures may be perused here.