Today, it is my pleasure to introduce the artist, Tina. But first, a small story about how Tina came on the scene.
If you are familiar with the stage play, Steel Magnolias, it was kinda’ like that but without the southern accent. Yep, a small town beauty salon, where the strong women solve all of the world’s problems and some of their own.
So, anyway, not-Elizabeth and a friend, Terri were getting their nails done and discussing the progress on Ralph Unleashed. The discussion at this visit was how to find an artist to do the line drawings that are on the first page of every chapter.
Penny, the beautician, suggested someone she knew, Tina. Well, now there was a solution, but how to implement it?
E-mail addresses were exchanged and the progress jumped out of 1950s mode and into the twenty-first century. All of the discussions between not-Elizabeth and Tina were via e-mail. Draft drawings were sent back and forth via e-mail. Tina’s bio was submitted via e-mail. Yes, these two women live less than fifteen miles apart and the whole job was done in cyber space. They still haven’t met in real life.
Tina’s bio reads, “Tina is a freelance artist as well as a dog groomer who lives on a small acreage in Iowa. She lives with her husband, three boys and four dogs. She enjoys nature, gardening and boating.”
Well, that wasn’t much, was it? But since I haven’t met her either, I can’t tell you much more. I figure that if she likes dogs, she’s a good person.
As alway, all the credit for the story goes to not-Elizabeth. She retains the copyright.
With that, enjoy today’s Ralph.
But of course the rules first:
Pooties are cats; Woozles are dogs. Goggies are dogs, too, and moggies are cats. Birds...are birds! Peeps are people. PWB Peeps are Pooties, Woozle, Birds People. By definition, my goggies are the bestest in the whole world. No trolling the diary.
Yo-Yo Trick #7: Walking the Dog
It was a lovely fall morning and Elizabeth woke up in an atypically pleasant mood. The mood was rapidly evaporating, however, and the reason for this she held in her hands. She was gripping both halves of the zipper on her pants, a zipper that did not quite meet in the middle. Compounding her chagrin was the fact that these particular pants had been purchased only three months ago. A dark cloud of dieting loomed on her horizon.
This was not the first time she’d been confronted with her increasing waistline. Over the past ten years Arthur had joked, lovingly of course, that you could tell her weight by her age, just add one hundred pounds. This had been uncannily accurate and if anyone had known the dark secret of her current age they would be quite capable of nailing her weight to the ounce. According to her personal calculations, at this rate she’d rival the bulk of an elephant if not its memory by the time she retired. Last night she had been reduced to donning a pair of sweatpants in order to get comfortable lounging on the couch, a glass of Little Black Dress pinot noir in hand.
“Right,” she had thought, as she clicked on her favorite cooking show. “If I don’t slim down this will be the only little black dress I’ll be able to use.” With that, she had taken a rather large sip and eyed the bottle on the table. Reaching for paper to copy the show’s recipe for Bavarian double chocolate cake, she could not help but notice how symbolic the bottle was of her physique; slender neck, solid all the way down from the shoulders.
And now this morning her pants were proving her right. She tried again to up the zipper and pinched a bit of that extra girth in the process. A cry escaped her lips.
“Dang,” she thought, “I’ll have to switch to granny pants; these low rise undies have shrunk so much they are no protection.” The truth was that her underwear was being called on to cover more than should be expected, and bore more of a resemblance to a thong. But for Elizabeth, objectivity was as hard to maintain as weight.
“I’m out of shape, I’ve got to start exercising more,” she whined, as she traded the tight pants for her old sweats. She already had a membership to the local gym, but driving five long miles into town had been a convenient excuse for procrastination.
Today Arthur had taken the car to go to an auction, the Ford being in the shop for repairs due to water damage. If she was going to exercise while her resolve was firm she would have to be creative with what she had on hand, and what she had on hand, or more precisely at her feet, was Ralph, lazily warming his coat in the sun. In the ten years Ralph had lived with them, not once had she considered it her responsibility to walk him. Maybe she should give it a try.
Ralph felt Elizabeth’s eyes on him and instantly became alert. Elizabeth was not usually his source for entertainment but he was willing to remain flexible. Philippians 2:4 came to mind, “Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” A Christian spirit came over him as he took in her retreat to the peg that held his leash, and he was up and at her side by the time she removed it. Noting the expectation her action had created, and recognizing that she was now committed to a walk, Elizabeth sighed, grabbed her sweater and hooked Ralph to the retractable lead.
She set out with all the enthusiasm of the family pet heading to the groomers, but consoled herself that the walk would be easier than sweating it out on the machines in town. Initially she assumed that she would be in charge of their pace and direction, but was soon relieved of that misconception. Ralph was a fine master of the leash dance. Before they had even left the driveway he managed to wrap himself twice around the mailbox. As Elizabeth untangled the lead she was encouraged by an energetic but not very helpful Ralph to get a move on. And once on the gravel road, nothing escaped his attention. Elizabeth was buffeted with repeated yanks on the line in multiple directions. It was three steps out and two steps back, but they made their way and eventually came parallel to the field in which the neighbor pastured his cows.
“Arf, arf, arf,” Ralph greeted them, his vocals accompanied with a lunge toward the fence. The unresponsive cows continued their slow grazing, yanking up hunks of grass with a steady nonchalant air. Not easily discouraged, he tried again, but still got no reply.
“Parting is such sweet sorrow,” he told them, as he raised a paw in farewell; on occasion Shakespeare was good for effect. However, his theatrics remained unappreciated and several intriguing smells were encouraging his nose to move on.
The next field contained a single cow. Elizabeth was pleased with less bovine confrontation until she realized that the lone occupant of the field was in fact the farmer’s bull. Ralph seemed even more eager to communicate with this male of the species than he had the cows and ran full throttle up to the fence, barking lustily in greeting. The bull, being a loner and lacking the socialization Ralph so obviously had, was not amused and pawed his hooves menacingly on the ground.
“No, Ralph!” screamed Elizabeth, “get back here, get back!” Her added commotion only further agitated the bull, prompting him to lower his head and fix her with a steely eye as he raked the earth. She noted the slim line of electrified wire and wondered how competent the REC was at cattle confinement. Not willing to bet on their expertise, she shortened Ralph’s lead with considerable force and encouraged him down the road.
It was then that she noticed a fellow pedestrian headed her way. As the distance between them decreased she saw that it was Aaron, the son of their neighbor. She was not well-acquainted with him but knew that he was taking a break from college to help his dad farm. She also had noted that any body-building magazine would have welcomed him as a centerfold.
Aaron greeted her amicably when they met, and Ralph gave him ten with paws to his thigh, followed by a screech from Elizabeth.
“Ralph, get down, get down now!” she yelled. Aaron assured her he didn’t mind at all.
“It’s the dog that doesn’t mind,” muttered Elizabeth ruefully, but Ralph failed to register the slight and continued to explore the area as Elizabeth and Aaron talked. He came back to insert himself in their conversation several times and it was during this exercise that he proceeded to entangle the two conversing humans, one aware of the situation and amused, the other oblivious.
Elizabeth was oblivious, that is, until the last dash Ralph made tightened the line securely around the now trussed up neighbors. They were only bound below kneecap, but that hardly mattered. In order to maintain balance they had to cling to each other in a manner that bordered on delicate. Disengaging resembled a clumsy game of Twister with Ralph calling the moves, but eventually they were extricated and parted ways. Elizabeth’s face was flushed with embarrassment and her heart rate was now elevated, though not from exercise.
Having read her share of romance novels, Elizabeth’s mind wandered a bit on the walk home after this encounter. Ralph felt obliged to pull her back to reality whenever impure thoughts started to emerge. He did this with such regularity that by the time they arrived at the front porch every joint in Elizabeth’s body was sore, every muscle tense, and her arms hurt beyond measure. Were she to have the luxury of dangling them at her side she would have noted that the right hand knuckles were in closer proximity to the ground than the left. It had certainly been a more vigorous walk than she had intended.
Entering the house, Elizabeth commanded Ralph to sit by the kitchen door while she scrubbed every speck of road dirt from his paws, gave his coat a thorough going-over with the Dust Buster, and vacuumed up imaginary specks of soil off the floor. Cleanliness restored, she turned him loose and watched as he sprawled his entire body across the cool tile floor. She'd have thought this old dog would be as exhausted as she was, but he looked refreshed and very content.
The truth was that Ralph was cogitating on the day’s events. He had been pleasantly surprised to find Elizabeth a joy to take out for exercise. A bit agitated at times, and those occasional high pitched screams pierced the ears, but… trainable, he mused, she’s trainable.
Republished with permission from Ralph Unleashed, Mischief and Mayhem with a Man’s Best Friend, available at Amazon.com.