Dog day

Dog day ladies’ meeting






I’m a military brat. That means that while growing up, we would pull stakes up every couple of years (or months) and have a “PCS” (Permanent Change of Station) and move somewhere else.

While seeing new places and meeting new people was a plus, having to reestablish yourself all the time was not.

That’s the kid’s perspective. Imaging being the “dependent” (term military uses for service member’s family) wife.

The trouble is double when you are not living on a military base. No one understands why you are so . . . transient. Back in the 60s, Mom and Dad bought their first home. It was miles from the base, and Mom was having a party for some group of ladies or another. It was all terribly important that it go well, because Mom was out To Make An Impression. She was about to be inspected, by civilians no less, and she was determined to pass.

Mom made all the foods that wowed the other military wives, including her “color cloud” angel food cake. This was a from-scratch angel food cake that Mom would poke holes into and drop in food coloring, creating clouds of color in the cake.

Hey, it was the 60s!

Anyway, all was just about in readiness, laid out of the table, when Mom discovered that she was missing something. This meant that she packed me and my sister into the car for a hurried trip to the store.

When we returned, our fox terrier puppy, Pugs, had cake crumbs all over his muzzle. Sure enough, he had hopped up and taken a bite of the cake.

Mom went white. The ladies were due in minutes.

“Go outside,” she told me and my sister. One look at her face and we knew to hurry.

Mt sister and I played outside while the ladies arrived in a cloud of perfume. We came back in when they left.

Mom was humming to herself as she cleaned up. It must have gone well. No word about the cake.

Finally, I screwed up my courage to ask.

“Mom?”

“Yes,” she replied

“Wha-wha-what about the cake? The one Pugs ate?”

“Oh that,” she replied, “I trimmed the edges and told the ladies I had give you girls a piece.”

Mom always has an answer for everything.