Not mine, silly. Per the requests of Shelly at Not The Daddy and Rachel from Tales of My 30s, I’m reliving 1976. Another excellent choice with some real life changing events.

I was in seventh grade – changing classrooms every hour for the first time ever. A bunch of new teachers, but the only one I remember at all taught Social Studies. His name was Mr. A-something-or-other, I think it was Armenian, and he was nice enough, but the only one that called me out on my 7th grade new-identity experiment.

See, I figured that by going to a new school, with new people, I had a chance at re-invention. Part of that process included changing the way I spelled my first name. No, not Ree – I wouldn’t have had much luck with that, I fear – but the name I was born with. Which ends in an -i. Since my sixth grade teacher had made some snarky remark about how many girls my age had names than end in an “i”, I figured that by changing it, I was DIFFERENT.

Wow. I guess I just realized that that’s kinda been a theme throughout my life.

Annnywayyyyyy. The way I was spelling it was not the way it was on his roster, so he called me on it. And I refused to spell it the way it was on my birth certificate.

Maybe that’s why I never saw any of my homework returned.

Seventy-six was also the year that my Dad no longer had to be a resident of the city in which he worked. See, the powers-that-be had insisted that all cops reside within the city limits. That year, though, they changed that rule and only mandated that they live in the same county.

Along with that change came the freedom to move out of our tiny house in the suburbs and into the country. Five wonderful acres with a barn and a pond were in my future. Horses, cows, chicken, geese, dogs and cats. ALL in my future. It was a wonderful way to get through teenage years. Oh, the chores sucked donkey balls (not literally, we never had any of those), but plenty of room to get away from family members certainly didn’t hurt.

The nice thing was that although we weren’t moving until summer vacation, we (and by we, I mean MomandDad of course) had signed the purchase agreement and were 100% certain that this Shangri-la was going to be our new home. We befriended the current owners – who immediately hired me as a babysitter – and I got to spend many weekends hanging around with their toddler son as a mother’s helper.

There was little or no pay for my time, but the other perks were endless. Fresh air. No siblings. No parents. I was treated like an adult(ish). I had my.own.room. Heaven.

One weekend while I was not having to deal with my family watching little Jonathon, their Great Dane Athena was in heat. She was a beautiful brindle they were intending to breed (they were not irresponsible pet owners). As Jonathon and I were playing in the yard, we noticed that Athena was missing. Calling for her, I saw her ears sticking up out of some long weeds over near the pasture fence.

I started towards her, hoping that she hadn’t gotten tangled in any of the barbed wire. I got closer. She still wasn’t moving. Now, I was less worried about her being stuck and more worried that she was sick.

Closer. “Athena. C’mon sweetie. Let’s go. What’s wrong?”

She still wouldn’t move.

Finally, with about 10 yards to go, she got up and sauntered towards me – tail held high. Breathing a sigh of relief, I jogged towards her, Jonathon trailing behind me.

THEN I saw what had been keeping her occupied.

The male daschund from next door had been…well…having his way with her. I hadn’t seen him because she LAID HER ASS DOWN for him to be able to get to her lady bits.

Snatching her by the collar, I hauled all 150 pounds of post-orgasmic-Dane up to the house and yelled at Christine.

Chris! Athena and one of the weiner dogs were just in the pasture together! Oh my gawd!!! I think he was on top of her.

I have to admit, I had to try really hard not to laugh.

Chris called the vet, loaded Athena into the car, and whisked her away for a morning-after pill.

Athena survived. Chris survived. I survived. The vet said that any hanky-panky probably wouldn’t have resulted in any viable puppies, but – since I now own a Chocolate Lab/Daschund mix – I’m a little suspicious about that particular statement.

Summer came. We moved. I started spelling my name the way it was on my birth certificate again. I still had to share a bedroom, but there were plenty of other places to get away from everyone (the barn was an awesome hangout). And there were plenty of adventures waiting for me during the nine years I called that place home.

About 8 months after we moved in and Chris and her family had moved down to Florida, we got a call. Our baby was being loaded onto a flight from Ft. Lauderdale. All 30 pounds of 12 week old female Dane puppy. We named her Habibi – “beloved” in Arabic. She lived with us for the next 14 years – the same vet that had treated her mom that day proclaimed her “the oldest Dane” he’d ever heard of.

—- And yes, she was ALL Dane. Not a speck of daschund anywhere in her. —-

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