With a Vengeance

That's Brian, the happy groom, walking me and Harper to the altar just before the ceremony began.

After officiating at my niece’s wedding Friday (and dancing up a storm at the reception afterwards) I needed a little blog break. Mike Knezovich to the rescue!

With a vengeance

by Mike Knezovich

I’m starting this post at a Barnes & Noble in Orlando, Fla., where Beth’s making a Hanni/Harper and Beth appearance. I’ll leave it to Beth to  fill you in on the wedding, but I can tell you is this: She and the wedding couple were perfect and everyone had a wonderful time.

But there were a few anxious moments the night before we flew south. I came home Wednesday night after a couple days in Urbana for work. I noticed some red spots on the floor. It looked like blood. This isn’t a totally uncommon experience–sometimes Beth gets a paper cut, or hits her forehead on a corner, and she bleeds without knowing it. Plus, she does frequent finger sticks for her blood sugar checks. Sometimes her finger keeps bleeding. It used to unnerve me a little, coming home after work to a little Lizzie Borden scene. But it’s always been something minor, and usually a little hydrogen peroxide and band-aid do the trick.

This time I looked at Beth’s forehead and fingers. Nothing. Almost at once, we both thought about Harper. I sat down next to him, and sure enough: red spots on his paws, and  his hip. Finally I found the source: A cut on the very tip of one of his ears. Beth immediately guessed what had happened. Earlier that day, as she and Harper tried to get on the elevator to go downstairs, a couple of small dogs growled and leaped at Harper. Flustered, she and Harper chose to wait for the next elevator.

Apparently, though, one of the little rats had gotten a piece of Harper’s ear. So I cleaned it and put some disinfectant on it. Harper was unfazed, a total trooper. I, on the other hand, was envisioning myself as an NFL placekicker, imagining little dogs flying end-over-end through goalposts. Followed by their owner. I hadn’t felt like this for awhile–kind of primal in wanting to set things right after that fact, to protect my little clan. Very Godfather like–you whack my brother, I whack yours. I’m sure I’ve always had this trait, but it was sharpened by by this sense that with all the unavoidable medical stuff that was visited on Beth and Gus, I just couldn’t tolerate any  stupidity that caused any more grief. I made a secret pact with myself:  anyone who made them feel bad would be made to feel at least twice as bad. (If they were lucky, only twice).

I made good on my pact. And for a long time, it worked for me. As I age, though, I find I have less energy for the anger–and less to be angry about. Gus is safe and sound in a little house in a little town by the river in Wisconsin. Beth takes me on business trips. We are back in Chicago after a wonderful wedding weekend in Orlando. Life is good. So as for the dogs,  I just sent a polite email to our building manager, asking that she inform the owners and ask them to take better care with their dogs. (And that if they didn’t, the dogs would swim with the fishes. No, not really.)

But I haven’t completely lost my edge. Here’s how I know: I’m an Illinois basketball fan. If you’re an Illinois basketball fan, you really loathe Bruce Pearl, who is the current coach of the Tennessee Volunteers. (If you’re not an Illinois fan, it’d take too long to explain–just trust me on this.) I’ve been diligently sending hateful thoughts his way for a long, long time.

Well, I managed to keep an eye on the NCAA basketball tourney between wedding festivities. And Tennessee was totally annihilated in their first round game. I mean, humiliated. And I learned that Pearl is likely going to lose his job because of NCAA rules infractions. And yeah, I admit, this made me very, very happy.

Which is all a long-winded way of saying, I might be mellowing some, but if you have little dogs, best to keep them on a short leash.