Not just an Animal Planet, it’s an Animal Universe

There is an African proverb that says: “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a closed room with a mosquito.” I think of this proverb often. I thought I might think of it less once I was off of Lamma and no longer sleeping with my bedside artillery; but it turns out to be one of those phrases that runs through my mind with consistent regularity in a literal context as well as a figurative one. “Too small to make a difference…”

This morning I am awakened at 5 a.m. Not because my body has determined it has enough sleep. Not because I need to use the bathroom. Not because I had that extra margarita the night before. Not because anticipation of the day’s events have piqued my bio-rhythms. This morning I am awakened at 5 a.m. because Matilda is pissed off. Matilda has had a rough couple of months, or at least in my human projections she has. She lost her brother, from whom she had never ever been apart, on the day Dennis Hopper died and her human host was nowhere to be found either. She was uprooted from the only home she has ever known with little warning or preparation, because that is how I seem to do things these days – just.like.that. No longer free to roam the jungle, chase butterflies and birds, smell the frangipani or ‘help’ our neighbors in the garden, coming and going as she pleased in an environment absent of cars, televisions and wiener dogs, Matil has found herself in the suburbs. I imagine this must have seemed like somewhat of a bad dream to her, after two ferry rides, a train ride, a taxi ride a 13-hour flight and two more hours in a car to wake up somewhere far far away in every possible interpretation.

When it is put like that it seems pretty clear why she is so pissed. Still, it was seeming as if she was adjusting. A couple of escapes proved she knew her way around in the ‘burbs and she has had little problem at all running the wiener dogs to and fro. She instinctively worked out that T was allergic and so promptly marked all important areas with her fur – most notably every millimeter of T’s workspaces, particularly the laptops. She also edited about two pages of T’s dissertation with a lot of “DDDZZZZZZZZZZJDIIIIIOOO RRRRRRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYKKKKKKKKKKKKKKZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ VVVVVVVVVVVVVSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS333333333333333333333333333333333” (She is helpful like that.) And she knows exactly how to get those wiener dogs going. And once they are going, there is no peace up in here.

So, here we are; two fully grown humans who are completely at the beck and call of three animals whose combined weight may be 25 pounds. They are running us.

Matilda weighs about six pounds. And this furball can destroy anything she gets her claws on, wake me from a dead sleep because she is disgruntled about something to do with her litter box, and tease these dogs like she’s been at it for years. Lola weighs maybe ten pounds, and she is recovering from surgery. Still, she can dictate the pace and even the possibility of a walk. She can make T late for work because she does not want to get out of bed or because she wants to go back to bad. Tanner is the only dude and seems content to pretty much just bark. At anything. Anytime. Oh, and he does this really loud wheezing thing I can hear from upstairs right now.

“Too small to make a difference…”

Animal Planet? I don’t think so. The planet was only the beginning.

Matilda has some very clear thoughts on wiener dogs anyhow.