September 1, 2010

I bought Ambrose a copy of Lassie Come Home to practice his reading. It's really very nice, literary in an English countryside sort of way. Tonight we were reading how Joe's dad used to lovingly brush Lassie's hair for an hour in front of the fire. Cassie was sprawled out in front of us, drooling, random tufts of matted hair poking out. She's shedding now, and little swirling tornados of hair bump along the floor or turn lazily in the corners of every room in the house if you move, breathe, or even think of moving. I went and got the brush and we all sat around her and she sighed gutterally with the attention of the brush. In minutes there was a loose clump of hair the size of a football at least. Ezra got an empty Gap bag and started putting the hair in it.

I'm going to keep this after she dies, he said.
That hair smells like she already died, I said, throw it out.
No he said.
Give me that bag. That hair is foul.

I did snip a little piece of hair from both of my beloved dogs before they were buried and cremated respectively. One was a tiny Yorkie and the other Cassie's sister, Mazy. The locks of hair from both dogs are caramel with streaks of wiry sable. I have samples of Ezra and Ambrose's first haircuts in an envelope. I don't know why Ezra is thinking about Cassie dying. She's dumb as hell --- even her hair is dumb; she kept her undercoat through the whole hot summer and is only shedding now in September, when she'll actually start to need it --- but she's definitely alive.