My Nest Isn't Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman (5 page)

So the other night, right before bed, I was standing with my dogs in the backyard, and here’s what happened to me:

A bug flew in my ear.

You heard that right.

But I didn’t.

I heard nothing but a loud and freaky fluttering.

Do you follow? I don’t mean that a bug landed on my ear and flew away, which would hardly be worth whining about. What I mean is that a bug flew into my ear and got stuck inside my head.

Can I just say that I freaked out?

I ran around the yard, yelling and shaking my head so hard that my new glasses flew off and broke.

Great.

I slapped my ear with my hand, but the bug just kept fluttering, giving me the creepiest case of swimmer’s ear ever. I figured it was a moth because it sounded like it had big wings, and it tickled, not in a good way. I shivered, I shuddered, I was grossed out. I couldn’t stand still. Nor could I deal with the fact that there was a moth inside my head.

I tried to remember from Biology 101 if the moth could fly into my brain, but I was pretty sure that it had to stop at my ear drum, which was already starting to itch, hurt, and maybe even vibrate.

Okay, that could have been my imagination.

Because there was a
moth inside my head
!

I didn’t know what to do. I considered sucking it out with the vacuum cleaner, but I don’t have the kind with the hose, only the kind you roll on the floor. I thought about pouring water into my ear but then I’d end up with a soggy moth. I tried to pull it out but it was already too far in, and I was worried I’d push it in even farther, maybe to my cerebellum or eyes.

I didn’t do well in Biology 101.

Then it seemed like the moth was going farther inside my noggin. Hitting myself in the temple wasn’t doing anything but giving me a headache. I tried to stay calm but every time the moth pounded its wings, it sounded like a helicopter.

Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration.

But still, it was scary, like that horror movie where the fly crawls up the girl’s nose. I tried to decide whether I’d rather have a fly up my nose or a moth in my ear, but I was too panicky to think. I ran back inside the house and danced around, yelping and trying to knock the moth out.

The dogs watched with varying reactions. The goldens sat calmly, waiting to go upstairs to bed, but Little Tony and Ruby The Corgi started barking and running around, a canine version of me. Also I was dog-sitting Pip, Daughter Francesca’s spaniel, and though he remained quiet, his bored expression told me he wished he’d stayed at a hotel.

So I drove at breakneck speed to the emergency room, and thank God there was almost no one on the road because the moth went into winged overdrive, and I yelped and squirmed the entire way. I explained everything to the nice reception ladies at the hospital, who told me that this happened all the time and were kind enough to understand my need to keep moving. It was the people in the waiting room who raised an eyebrow, thinking I was having seizures. And I didn’t take offense when one of the nurses asked if I had taken any street drugs.

By the way, for those of you who recall my last trip to the emergency room, after my dog bit the hand that feeds her, I had yet another superhot male nurse. And yes, I was braless while middle-aged.

Which would be the bad news.

The good news is that while they took my blood pressure, the moth flew out of my ear. One nurse gasped, the other one laughed.

At least the moth didn’t fly out my other ear.

And you know what? I killed the moth.

I felt instantly guilty, but he deserved it.

Then I went home, once again, happily empty-headed.

The next day the receptionist called to tell me I had left my driver’s license and insurance card at the hospital, and she asked me whether I’d write a story about the moth.

Ya think?

We know that I live alone with five dogs, which sounds pathetic, but is actually fun.

We also know that I sleep with at least four of these dogs. The two Cavaliers, Little Tony and Peach His Child Bride, then Penny and Ruby The Corgi with Restless Leg Syndrome.

Angie, the older golden, sleeps in my bedroom on her denim dog bed that says GOOD GIRLS.

All the bad girls are in my bed.

Now this is going to sound weird, but I actually look forward to going to bed, partly because of these canine characters.

Here’s a typical night: I usually work until bedtime in the family room, while the dogs doze, chew Nylabones, or watch TV. It’s not always as peaceful as it sounds. Ruby barks every time a doorbell rings in a commercial, and she hates the one where the people drive around squeezing a squeaky toy. Somebody needs to tell these advertisers not to make commercials that make dogs bark. I mute the commercial every time it comes on, and if I ever see whatever product they’re selling, I’ll burn it.

Anyway, my favorite part of the day is when I turn off the laptop and TV, switch off the table lamps, and walk the dogs one last time. It takes a while for five dogs to go to the bathroom, and I use that time to look up at the sky and the stars. I’m not good at constellations, but I recognize the three little stars in a row as part of Orion. I know a belt when I see one. I’m good at stellar accessories.

If they had constellations in the shape of shoes and handbags, I’d be an astronomer.

In fact, it makes you wonder if there are enough women astronomers. I have a feeling that if there were, we’d see fewer dippers and bears in the sky and more eyelash curlers and mascara wands.

I would never be outside on a freezing night if it weren’t for these doggies, and believe it or not, that’s fun, too. The air is pure and clean, and it’s easy to forget how cold it is if you’re bundled up. The sky in winter is the color of frozen blueberries, and last night was almost starless except for a full moon, so bright that when it shone through the bare tree limbs, it cast jagged moonshadows on the frozen ground, like lightning.

I like to look up at the sky because my only other choice is looking down, at what the dogs are doing. And it doesn’t get more earthbound.

When they’re finished, we go in, lock up, and trundle upstairs, where everybody falls into position. Penny and Ruby take opposite corners, anchoring the bed, and Peach and Little Tony take their places on my left and right, anchoring me.

Peach cuddles like crazy, curling in the crook of my elbow or against my neck. They say Cavaliers are lap dogs, but that’s not true. They’re really neck dogs. Face dogs. Cheek dogs. They want to breathe the same air as you, at the exact same moment, like the stalkers of the dog world.

And you know what?

It’s kinda great.

And Peach, especially, is so calm. She never yaps or growls, and is somehow the one who keeps her head when all the dogs around her are losing theirs.

Which has been known to happen at night.

Anybody who sleeps with dogs knows that they bark at squirrels, deer, and whatever else is out there. Or they start scratching and shake the bed. Or they shift positions and squirm around. Or they have doggie dreams that make them yelp. Or they decide to clean themselves, and the sound of their licking will wake you up, then gross you out.

If you sleep with dogs, it won’t be the best night’s sleep.

But somehow, it won’t matter.

I just got off the phone with Mother Mary, who’s lost her mind. Or maybe it’s Scottoline birthday madness.

Let me explain.

She told me a story that happened to her that day, when she was going outside to do the laundry.

Yes, you read that right.

She lives in Miami with brother Frank and she goes outside to do the laundry because they keep their washer and dryer in the backyard.

This makes no sense to me, but she swears that it’s common in Florida to keep major appliances in the backyard, like shrubs with twenty-year warranties.

Still, it’s hard for me to believe. I suspect that my mother and brother are redneck Italians.

But never mind, that’s not the point of the story.

So Mother Mary is going outside to put in a load of laundry and she sees one of her neighbors, a nice young woman, walking her two-year-old son by the hand. My mother stops to say hello, and the little boy looks up at her with big blue eyes and says:

“I love you, Mary.”

So of course my mother melts, because she loves kids, and she even gets choked up telling me on the phone. The whole story is sounding really sweet until she gets to the next part, which is when she asks the mother of the toddler when is his birthday, and the woman answers:

November 23.

Okay, means nothing to you, but that’s brother Frank’s birthday.

And on the phone, my mother tells me: “I looked at that little boy, and I thought he was like Frank. Like he has your brother’s soul.”

I thought I heard her wrong. “Pardon?”

“When he said he loved me, I looked into his eyes and I could see his soul, and it was Frank’s soul.”

“You mean they’re alike?”

“No, I mean they’re the same.”

I tried to deal. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. I’m telling you, he has the same exact blue eyes as Frank and he was born on the same day. He has Frank’s soul.”

“Ma, Frank still has his soul. He’s not dead yet.”

“I know that,” she said, irritably. “They share the same soul.”

“Ma, that’s crazy.”

“Sorry, but I know, I can tell. Remember the earthquake?”

This shuts me up, temporarily. It’s matter of public record that Mother Mary was the only person in Miami to feel an earthquake that took place in Tampa, and the South Florida newspapers even dubbed her Earthquake Mary. Ever since then, she thinks she’s Al Roker, but supernatural.

She said, “It’s the same soul. Absolutely.”

“Ma, just because they have the same birthday doesn’t mean they have the same soul.”

“Hmph. What do you know about birthdays?”

She was referring to something I’ll never live down, which happened to me over twenty years ago, when Daughter Francesca was three years old. I had taken her in a stroller into an optician’s shop in town, and a man walked through the door, pointed directly at Francesca, and said: “Her birthday is February 6.”

I was astounded. “How do you know?”

“I just do.”

I went home that day and called my mother. “Ma, some guy just guessed that Francesca’s birthday is February 6! Isn’t that amazing?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because her birthday is February 7.”

I blinked. “It is?”

“Yes, dummy.”

Look, I have no idea how it happened, but for the first three years of Francesca’s life, I celebrated her birthday on the wrong day.

Sue me.

Maybe it’s because I was in labor for 349,484 hours, so the exact day she was born seemed like a technicality. And since then, it was just she and I celebrating a day earlier, with nobody around to know better.

So now I can never say anything about birthdays, ever.

But at least I know where everybody’s soul should be.

And their washer-dryers, too.