b Papa Dog's Blog: A Couple of Senses and Stuff Like That

Papa Dog's Blog

A Thing Wherein I Infrequently Write Some Stuff

Friday, August 13, 2004

A Couple of Senses and Stuff Like That

Sight: So, yeah, I took a picture of Mama and Baby Dog this morning, but I have to admit that the whole thing was as staged and as phony as Dumbya on a mountain bike. Didn't start out that way, of course. We'd left the Li'l Puppy to doze between us after the 6 a.m. feeding, and when I got up to take the recycling out round about 9, I returned to the -- okay, I'm stuck saying it now -- heartwarming sight of the two ladies in my life in placid slumber. Then Mama Dog opened her eyes, caught me staring, and gave me a look like, "What're you starin' at, perv?" so I hastily said, "That's a very cute sight." "What?" she asked. "The two of you lying there asleep like that," riposted I. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "Take a picture!" It's a rule of new parenthood that any confirmed moments of cuteness must be photographically documented. I got the camera, turned back around, and saw Baby Dog, face contorted, little clenched fists waving, launching off into a little tiny ferment of sourceless dissatisfaction and Mama Dog, wide awake, striving to soothe and placate. "That's not actually cute anymore," I thought, but had the good sense not to say. We waited a few minutes and Baby Dog resumed a kind of fitful slumber. Mama Dog closed her eyes and pretended to sleep. I waited patiently, and when Baby Dog's aspect had returned to a reasonable facsimile, I snapped the shot. She was no longer plainly a-slumber. She still had one fist up, evoking Black Power, and her eyes were threatening to reopen; but I got the shot, and I suppose only I will really know that, as is so often the case in life and art, the lasting document will be only an earnestly reasonable facsimile of a perfect moment lost forever.

Smell: Last night I paused the DVD (we were watching the "Crosetti" episode of Homicide) and exclaimed, "The house smells of baby!" I don't know why I chose that moment to drop everything and officially note the baby smell. I'd been noticing it for days, particularly any time I sat in the rocker. Everything smells of baby. Mama Dog expressed puzzlement. She didn't notice any particular smell, but then she doesn't always notice the Doggy Dog smell either...and believe me, there's a Doggy Dog smell. You stop noticing a smell when you're surrounded by it day in and day out, if you ever noticed it at all. I suppose the place is suffused with our smell, too, but how would we ever know? I'm not sure what the baby smell is. The obvious candidate is the bag of dirty diapers in the baby room, but they don't really smell that much and are bombarded with weapons grade deodorisers anyway. Is it perhaps the smell of baby wipes? A lingering confusion of aloe and disinfectant? Or perhaps it's the product of the bustling cheese factory tirelessly at work in the folds of our well-fed bairn's blooming jowls. I don't know. It's not an unpleasant smell, but it's always there, waiting to catch me off guard with the reminder that, yes, it really did happen, we have a child.

(It could be, I suppose, olfactory hallucinations. I have those from time to time. I believe the technical term is parosmia. Apparently it can be an indicator of epilepsy from which, to the best of my knowledge, I do not suffer. In those cases, I think it's usually a smell of rot or other unpleasantness. When I "smell things," it tends to be things of a happier order. I'll smell fresh laundry when there is none around. Pencil shavings. Chocolate. Some weeks back, I was walking to work...this was back when I still worked...and I could swear I smelled salt on top of a soft boiled egg. This was particularly odd because I found it a very pleasant and comforting smell, despite the fact that I absolutely despise egg. I ate soft boiled eggs when I was a child, though, and I guess that's what I was being taken back to.)

Reading Update: Got quite a bit more of Fifth Business read, while rocking baby during the day and waiting to be certain she was asleep round past midnight. I'm continuing to enjoy it and recommend it to one and all.

Newspaper Update: Progress here, too. Finished July 29 and July 30. I feel like the little engine that just maybe perhaps possibly could.

1 Comments:

Blogger patty lewis said...

You know, if you smoked, you probably wouldn't notice the baby smell.

7:06 AM  

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