The Adventures of Geo Beane: Day 9 of Renovations

This morning Humphrey left me Alone.

He was up at dawn, and ready, "Beanieboo, so sorry to do this to you. I'm going to put in a couple of hours at the other house, and then we'll go on our trip," and with that he grabbed somethings from his painting cabinet and vanished into the dark. Groggily, I could hear his descending footsteps on the distinctive squeak of the stairs, step 9, 7 and 3. The door shut, locked click, click, and the motor started.

By then I was bounding down, fully awake, and crouched before the welcome mat on the inside of the front door with its crescent window and round peep hole. I tucked all four paws under me and waited. Time dragged; I began to mope a little. But I listened and waited.

As a pup, I had always detested being left "alone," in the house or the car, even if this was technically with a brother or sister. There was something terrifying about the Absence, or its idea. What it represented, as the possibility of No Return. It particularly scared me to be left in the car, strange people passing on the outside, with me locked in... there was something extra disconcerting about being left Alone, among people.

This was of course well before Humphrey. He seldom did that to me; and anyway, my perspective on it had changed. In the time "between," I had embraced the Alone. I had learned that I could count on no one, and that much more depended on me than I had credited. Also, that isolation surrounded each of us, regardless. I had also experienced the grim reality that eventually doors permanently close. It is when you care deeply for someone or something that you find yourself hovering over that portal. Waiting.

And waiting. Humphrey returned after about two hours, just as he had foretold. He was very pleased with himself. And I rejoiced with him, wagging my tail affirmatively, and fighting the urge to jump all over his legs.

"We've got to keep the momentum going, Geo. I don't want this little diversion of a trip to trip-us-up with our housework. You'll be pleased to know that I put the faux finish down on the front entrance floor and it is now ready for varnishing as soon as we have the den floor fully scraped and set. Then we'll tackle them both at once with a coat of Varathane."

By now we were well on the road to Indiana. We were taking a route I had never seen before, not at all like what I had described with corn fields and metal factories respiring behind. This was country clear to the horizon. A strange country indeed. Still very much industrialized, but in a thinly drawn-out way, instead of sheets of metal silo and spiring electrical towers. Here there were miles of flat farm plains, and all of them populated by huge skeletal metal irrigation "birds," or sometimes even larger very long "dinosaur bones," on wheels. The pipes were sometimes dry, sometimes leaking, either in a fine mist or strong current, apparently based on need of whatever was planted beneath.

We are in a definite drought.

I couldn't help but wonder if it was pure water, or a mixture of fertilizer and pesticide. Regardless, the bones of the structures were a shocking contrast to whatever was proposed to grow below.

An hour and a half later, and we were there. "There," being a strip mall well situated in the midst of abstract Indiana country, meaning no city in particular, at least that I could identify. Humphrey had some specialties he was hunting down for one of his countless hobbies and interests, some gizmos and doodads, which he was hoping that this little retail mall of flea market would hopefully happen to have... He turned to me with that look in his eye and I knew what was up, as he rolled the windows partly down.

"Geo Beane, I hate to do this to you..."

mrrgh... and I put my head down on the seat and waited it out.